MISSIONARY  TRACTS  FOR  THE  TIMES. 

No.  4. 


SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS 


IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


/ 


HOW 'THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED, 


A  PROBLEM  FOR  THE  SONS  OF  ISSACHAR. 


¥ 


KEY.  C.  IT.  CARP 


K  5  -wm 


Itf 


Price  Twi 


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— 


BOSTON : 
PUBLISHED  BY  PERCIYAL  T 
43  Lincoln  Street. 
1886. 


“I  enjoyed  the  reading  of  ‘No.  3*  exceedingly,  as  I  did  the  preceding. 
.  .  .  I  believe  there  are  many  in  the  Baptist  ranks  who  are  beginning  to 
see  the  necessity  of  a  radical  change,  both  in  the  administration  at  home, 
and  in  the  policy  of  the  Union  abroad.  To  bring  this  about,  agitation  is 
needed  at  the  present  time  ;  and  there  is  no  more  timely  presentation  than 
that  in  your  clear-cut,  matter-of-fact,  unanswerable  arguments.  These 
discussions  should  be  in  the  hands  of  every  minister  and  every  contribu¬ 
tor.  ...  I  wish  you  God  speed  in  your  heroic  work.”  —  Pastor  B. 

“  I  began  to  read  with  some  prejudice,  based  on  what  I  had  heard  and 
read  against  your  method  of  reform  ;  but,  thank  the  Lord,  I  got  converted 
before  I  had  finished  reading  it.  The  Christian  spirit  with  which  thedract 
is  pervaded  ;  the  arguments  which  seem  to  be  unanswerable  ;  and  the  tes¬ 
timony  of  missionaries  of  long  experience  on  heathen  fields,  in  behalf  of 
self-support,  convince  me.  .  .  .  May  the  Lord  aid  you  in  the  much-needed 
reform.”  —  Pastor  H. 

“Thanks  for  ‘No.  3,’  which  I  have  read  with  great  interest.  I  hope  it 
will  make  the  impression  it  ought  to  make.  I  have  long  felt  that  the 
missionary  enterprise  needed  an  infusion  of  new,  red,  missionary  blood. 
Nothing  stirs  the  world  like  genuine  Christian  self-sacrifice,  and  nothing 
is  so  offensive  as  that  which  is  missionary  only  in  name.  .  '.  .  The  large 
salaries  of  our  secretaries  are  very  demoralizing.  They  make  the  mission¬ 
aries  dissatisfied  ;  and  the  salaries  of  the  missionaries,  in  turn,  make  the 
native  assistants  dissatisfied.  .  .  .  I  wish  you  God  speed,  but  I  fear  you  are 
leading  a  forlorn  hope.  There  are  great  odds  against  you.  ...  I  pray  that 
the  Divine  dynamite  may  be  given  to  blast  away  the  conservatism  of  a 
worldly  Christianity,  and  that  you  may  lay  the  train.”  —  Pastor  L. 


“  1  believe  you  are  doing  the  mission  cause  a  real  service  by  your  tracts, 
and  I  hope  that  you  will  succeed  in  so  bringing  the  matter  before  the 
public  that  it  will  receive  the  attention  which  it  deserves.”  —  Pastor  R. 


“If  the  writers  of  ‘open  letters’  would  assail  your  writings,  and  then 
allow  you  to  reply,  they  would  act  like  men  ;  but  when  they  assail  your 
motives  as  well,  and  then  allow  no  reply,  they  stoop  below  the  character 
of  men,  not  to  say  Christians.”  —  Pastor  T. 


“  So  interesting,  valuable,  and  suggestive  !  I  wish  success  to  every  at¬ 
tempt  to  promote  economy  in  all  branches  of  public  expenditure,  in  State 
and  Church.”  —  Rev.  Prof. - . 

Commendatory  notices  have  been  received  from  “  The  Vermont  Baptist,” 
“Ford’s  Christian  Advocate  and  Home  Circle,”  “  The  Missionary  Advo¬ 
cate”  (Friends),  “The  Missionary”  (Southern  Presbyterian),  “The  Mis¬ 
sionary  Record  ”  (Cumberland  Presbyterian),  “Zion’s  Herald ”  (Methodist), 
and  others.  Dr.  Lasher,  in  the  “  Journal  and  Messenger,”  again  gives  us 
“  fiat  seven,”  full  and  clear  :  — 

“  Benedict  Arnold  .  .  .  is  still  a  mystery.  .  .  .  How  a  personal  pique 
.  .  .  against  the  Secretary.  .  .  .  There  is  no  good  reason  why  he  should 
not  start  at  once,  and  remain  away  from  this  counti*y  all  the  rest  of  his 
life.  .  .  .  ‘  Brother  Carpenter,  go  ;  go  at  once,  and  do  not  stand  upon  the 
order  of  your  going.  Only  by  thus  going  .  .  .  Go,  then  ;  go  speedily  !  ’  ” 


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IV. 

SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 

HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


i 


“/  incessantly  pray  Heaven,  all  men,  the  whitest  alike  and  the  blackest,  the 
richest  and  the  poorest,  had  attained  precisely  the  same  right,  the  divine  right 
of  being  compelled  (if  *  permitted  ’  will  not  answer )  to  do  what  they  are  appointed 
for,  and  not  to  go  idle  another  'minute ,  in  a  life  which  is  so  short,  and  where 
idleness  so  soon  runs  to  putrescence 

“  *  No  work,  no  recompense .  .  .  Work  is  the  mission  of  man  in  this  Earth. 
A  day  is  ever  struggling  forward,  a  day  will  arrive  in  some  approximate  de¬ 
gree,  when  he  ivho  has  no  ivork  to  do,  by  ivhatever  name  he  may  be  named ,  will 
not  find  it  good  to  shoio  himself  in  our  quarter  of  the  Solar  System ;  but  may 
go  and  look  out  elsewhere,  If  there  be  any  Idle  Planet  discoverable  ?  ” 


T.  Carlyle. 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


To  Rev.  William  Ashmore,  D.D. 

My  dear  Brother , —  I  pause  in  my  work  upon  “  Missionary 
Tract  No.  4,”  to  read  and  reply  to  your  “open  letter”  ad¬ 
dressed  to  myself  in  “The  Watchman”  of  Nov.  26,  1885.  I 
reciprocate  all  the  courteous  expressions  with  which  your  letter 
closes.  You  have  done  a  grand  work  for  China.  You  exem¬ 
plify  in  yourself  the  virtues  and  the  strength  which  Christ  gives, 
when  he  would  present  to  his  Church  an  able  minister  of  the 
New  Testament,  or  an  able  missionary  of  the  cross  on  heathen 
shores.  We  have  been  engaged  for  many  years  in  preaching 
the  same  gospel  in  benighted  Asia  ;  and,  through  the  blessing 
of  God,  we  have  both  been  permitted  to  bring  a  few  souls 
from  thick  darkness  into  the  knowledge  and  life  of  our  divine 
Redeemer.  We  have  both  been  engaged  in  teaching  the  same 
theology,  and  in  establishing  churches  of  the  same  Baptist  faith 
and  order.  Our  views  on  the  mission-school  question  are,  as 
you  say,  nearly  alike;  though  I  have  been  led  by  differing  cir¬ 
cumstances  to  attempt  greater  things,  perhaps,  in  the  line  of 
self-supporting  schools,  than  you  have  done. 

If  I  would  but  confine  myself  to  the  unwisdom  and  waste 
which  have  attended  our  costly  attempts  at  evangelization  by 
means  of  schools,  you  would  give  me  your  esteemed  favor  and 
powerful  support ;  but  if  my  sense  of  duty,  and  my  under¬ 
standing  of  God’s  word  and  will,  lead  me  to  attack  the  subsidy 

145 


14G 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


system  which  you  have  so  long  practised,  and  which  you  still 
intend  to  make  use  of,  or  if  I  venture  to  remark  upon  the  sala¬ 
ries  paid  to  missionaries,  their  style  of  living,  and  their  mode 
of  crossing  the  ocean,  you  turn  upon  me  your  displeasure  which 
I  deprecate,  and  your  facile  pen  which  I  have  often  admired, 
hut  do  not  allow  myself  to  fear,  so  long  as  I  keep  within  the 
hounds  of  the  truth  and  the  righteousness  which  are  revealed 
as  such  to  me. 

Bear  with  me  yet  a  little  longer,  Dr.  Ashmore.  My  mes¬ 
sage  to  the  pastors  and  churches  of  our  native  land  is  nearly 
delivered.  Every  denominational  paper  in  America  is  open, 
free  of  cost,  to  you.  With  one  or  two  honorable  —  but  only 
partial  —  exceptions,  all  are  virtually  closed  to  me.  Some  of 
them  strangely  seek  to  uphold  the  missionary  cause  by  striking 
me  with  one  hand  and  gagging  me  with 'the  other.  I  must  pay 
for  every  em  of  type  that  is  set,  and  for  every  pound  of  paper 
that  is  used,  in  this  warfare  which  I  have  undertaken,  not , 
as  you  affirm,  against  the  Missionary  Union,  but  against  the 
abuses  which  have  crept  into  our  missions,  and  to  which  you 
are  a  party.  I  must  pay  out  hundreds  of  dollars  for  postage, 
in  order  to  bring  my  protest  within  reach  of  those  who  have  a 
right  to  know  the  facts,  who  alone  can  right  the  wrong.  When 
I  have  sought  at  so  great  outlay  to  appeal  to  my  brethren  of 
the  ministry,  you  have  done  what  you  could  to  have  these 
tracts  deposited  u  unread,  in  the  waste-basket”  (see  resolution 
passed  at  the  Indiana  State  Convention  in  your  presence). 
Such  is  your  idea  of  fair  play  and  freedom  of  debate  for  me, 
when  I  happen  to  advocate  views  that  are  opposed  to  your 
views  and  your  fancied  interests.  When  by  the  exhaustion  of 
my  lesources,  my  ungracious  task  is  done,  I  hope  to  return  to 
the  easier  and  more  congenial  work  on  foreign  shores.  It  is 
hopeless,  probably  ;  but  if,  perchance,  some  word  of  mine  in 
this  controvers}'  might  penetrate  your  coat  of  mail,  and  lead 
you,  on  your  return,  to  change  your  policy  in  the  matter  of 
self-support,  it  would  be  auspicious  of  good  to  your  mission, 
as  well  as  most  gratifying  to  me. 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


147 


Nearly  the  whole  of  your  first  column,  Dr.  Ashmore,  is  de¬ 
voted  to  a  search  for  the  motives  which  have  actuated  the 
writer  of  the  “  Missionary  Tracts.”  He  has  made  an  attack 
upon  the  Missionary  Union  so  brutal,  that  he  must  have  de¬ 
sired  to  destroy  the  grand  old  society  ;  he  must  have  had  a 
long-standing  “  grudge  ”  to  satisfy.  I  assured  you,  when  “No. 
2  ”  first  came  out,  that  I  had  no  such  motives;  that  my  only 
wish  was  to  effect  a  much-needed  change  in  policy.  As  I  could 
not  convince  you  then,  it  is  hardly  worth  while  for  me  to  reiter¬ 
ate  denials  and  protestations.  Rev.  Dr.  Gracey  (Methodist) 
says  in  the  “  Missionary  Magazine  ”  for  November,  that  u  the 
candor  of  the  author,  as  well  as  his  pains-taking,  are  evident  on 
almost  every  page.”  If  a  deep  conviction  of  serious  wrong 
in  our  existing  methods,  and  a  strong  desire  to  help  lift  our 
missions  on  to  a  higher  plane,  are  not  discernible  in  my  tracts, 
they  certainly  fail  as  conspicuously  as  you  do,  to  do  justice  to 
their  author. 

As  to  my  being  “  in  an  absolute  minority  of  one,”  please 
read  this  from  Rev.  Mr.  Ward,  an  experienced  Methodist  mis¬ 
sionary  in  India  :  “A  generation  of  missionaries  going  through 
the  country  empty-handed,  as  the  apostles  did,  would  revolution¬ 
ize  India.”  And  this  from  our  own  Timpany :  “Had  not  a 
rupee  of  foreign  money  been  spent  on  the  direct  [native] 
evangelistic  agencies  of  India,  its  old  faiths  would,  by  this 
time,  be  like  a  doomed  city  in  the  grip  of  an  earthquake.” 
And  this  from  Rev.  J.  Smith,  for  thirty  years  a  missionary  of 
the  English  Baptist  Society  in  Delhi  and  vicinity  :  “  Almost  all 
the  evils  we  have  to  contend  with  may  be  attributed  to  money. 
.  .  .  Indigenous  churches,  which  are  the  hope  of  India,  can 
never  spring  up  so  long  as  the  native  agents  are  in  the  pay  of 
the  missions.  The  man  who  supplies  the  pa}'  must  and  will 
be  master.”  Read  also  the  testimony  of  twenty-six  competent 
witnesses  in  “  No.  3.”  Many  of  these  are  your  peers  in  every 
respect ;  and  they  unanimously  deplore  the  evils  of  the  subsidy 
system,  as  it  is  practised  in  China,  Burma,  India,  and  Africa. 
To  sanitariums  and  guest-houses  I  have  not  the  slightest  objec> 


148 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


tion,  if  missionaries  will  club  together  and  pay  for  them  from 
their  generous  salaries,  as  pastors  in  this  country  generally  have 
to  do,  or  go  without.  In  Bassein,  and  in  Toungoo  also,  I  be¬ 
lieve,  missionaries  have  made  such  provision  to  their  advantage. 
What  I  do  object  to  is  the  disposition  which  some  have  mani¬ 
fested  to  get  all  they  can  out  of  the  society.  I  need  not  add, 

I  trust,  that  this  plain  remark  has  no  reference  whatever  to  the 
missionaries  of  Swatow. 

Again,  allow  me  to  say  that  I  did  not  select  the  Southern 
Baptist  Convention  and  the  American  Board  because  their  finan¬ 
cial  exhibits  would  put  the  Missionary  Union  at  the  greatest 
disadvantage.  There  are  scores  of  societies,  as  you  well  know, 
which  expend  less  money  per  missionary  than  either  of  them. 

I  selected  those  two  simply  because  of  their  nearness  to  us  ; 
the  American  Baptist  Missionary  Union  being,  in  a  sense,  the 
offspring  of  the  American  Board,  and  the  mother  of  the  Rich¬ 
mond  society.  You  assert,  somewhat  rashly,  that  I  left  out 
some  things  necessary  to  a  fair  comparison.  You  excuse  your¬ 
self  from  entering  “into  details,”  but  please  do  me  the  favor 
to  specify  one  such  omission  if  3’ou  can.  After  weighing  can¬ 
didly  every  criticism  that  bears  on  my  tables,  I  still  believe  the . 
comparisons  which  I  made  to  be  absolutely  fair,  and  so  con¬ 
clusive  that  they  ought  to  carry  conviction  to  every  missionary 
and  every  officer  connected  with  the  Union. 

Where  you  got  the  idea  that  I  wish  to  “  equalize  ”  the  sala¬ 
ries  of  home  and  foreign  missionaries,  I  cannot  imagine.  There 
are  some  foreign  missionaries  that  ought  to  receive  less,  others 
that  ought  to  receive  more,  than  some  home  missionaries,  in 
my  judgment.  And  the  salaries  paid  to  missionaries  in  differ¬ 
ent  foreign  countries,  and  to  those  in  cities  and  to  those  in 
country  stations,  ought  to  vary  about  as  much  as  salaries  vary 
on  the  different  fields  of  the  American  Board. 

At  one  of  your  remarks,  I,  too,  pause  with  “  amazement.” 
“  Life  in  a  heathen  land,”  you  say,  “  is  all  of  it .  second-class. 

.  .  .  Eight  or  ten  }7ears  in  the  steerage  of  heathenism,  with  its 
filth,  its  vermin,  and  its  nasty  concomitants,  are  enough  at  one 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


149 


stretch.”  Possibly,  if  this  language  be  interpreted  in  a  strictly 
spiritual  sense,  you  can  justify  it ;  though  even  in  that  sense 
our  privations  have  their  compensations  which  are  precious 
beyond  expression.  I  have  never  seen  Swatow ;  but  I  have 
visited  scores  of  missionary  homes  in  Bankok,  Hongkong,  Can¬ 
ton,  Niugpo,  Shanghai,  and  other  Chinese,  Japanese,  and 
Indian  cities  ;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  the  picture 
which  you  draw  in  these  few  words  misleading  and  (uninten¬ 
tionally)  untruthful.  An  intelligent  Christian  lady,  after  mak¬ 
ing  the  tour  of  China  and  other  Eastern  lands,  is  said  to  have 
remarked,  “I  can  never  again  say  ‘poor  missionaries:’  let 
me  always  say,  since  I  have  seen  them  in  their  homes,  ‘  good 
missionaries.’  ”  The  comfort,  the  absolute  neatness,  the  trained 
servants,  the  unostentatious  elegance  even,  which  are  found 
in  so  many  missionary  homes  abroad  (including  m37  own  old 
home  in  Rangoon,  perhaps),  would  strike  the  great  majority  of 
our  contributing  friends,  if  they  could  see  them,  with  surprise, 
if  not  with  a  measure  of  disapproval.  In  touring  among  the 
people,  of  course  the  comfortable  home  has  to  be  left  behind ; 
but  allow  me  to  ask  if  Dr.  Ashmore  on  the  average  spends 
fifty  nights  a  year  among  the  “nasty  concomitants”  of  Chi¬ 
nese  inns,  or  even  in  the  mitigated  nastiness  of  the  chapels 
and  homes  of  his  own  Christian  converts?  To  the  wreak,  Paul 
became  as  the  weak,  in  order  that  he  might  gain  the  weak  ;  but 
you  and  I  go  to  the  poor  heathen,  and  live  so  many  miles  above 
them,  that  the  wonder  is  that  our  preaching  wins  a  single  soul. 
For  my  own  part,  I  am  determined  with  God’s  help  to  come 
down  a  little.  Can  you  not  see,  my  genial,  clear-headed 
brother,  that  }tou  also  would  be  doing  a  service  acceptable  to 
the  homeless,  penniless  Christ,  by  coming  down  a  little  too? 

I  have  been  reluctant,  Dr.  Ashmore,  to  call  special  attention 
to  the  one  weak  point  in  your  work  ;  but  the  fact  that  it  per¬ 
fectly  illustrates  the  doctrine  of  these  tracts,  and,  moreover, 
the  freedom  with  which  you  have  assailed  my  literary  work  and 
even  my  motives,  leaves  me  cjuite  free  to  speak  freely,  but 
without  the  slightest  ill-will,  and  I  trust  with  no  heat.  For  all 


/ 


150 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


these  years,  you  and  I  have  really  been  working  on  different 
principles.  It  is  useless  for  you  to  attempt  to  conceal  from 
yourself  or  others  the  fact  that  your  chief  reliance  for  “  the 
sinews  of  war  ”  has  been  upon  the  Christians  of  America  ;  and 
even  now,  after  your  mission  to  the  Tie  Chiu  people  has  been 
established  forty  years  and  more,  you  are  still  far  enough  from 
being  ready  to  release  your  hold  upon  the  arm  that  has  so  long 
borne  you  up. 

What,  then,  has  been  your  record  as  to  this  vital  matter  of 
self-support?  In  18G5  you  estimated  that  the  expenditures 
of  the  heathen  upon  their  religious  and  superstitious  rites  would 
average  at  least  ten  dollars  a  family,  annually,  in  one  of  the 
large  towns  on  your  field.  You  wrote  that  out  of  their  poverty 
they  contributed  this  large  average  cheerfully.  Have  your 
Chinese  converts  contributed  any  thing  like  that  amount  for 
the  religion  which  is  saving  them  and  their  families  from  eter¬ 
nal  death?  Or  have  you  allowed  American  Christians  to  bear 
almost  the  entire  cost  of  their  preachers  and  schools?  These 
are  plain  questions,  indeed ;  but  the}'  seem  to  be  perfectly 
germane  to  the  discussion  which  you  have  chosen  to  enter. 

In  1874  you  wrote  of  the  Chinese,  that  “they  have  a  richly 
laden  suppty-train,  which,  in  the  case  of  the  tribes  spoken  of 
[Karens  and  others],  must  be  furnished  by  the  American 
churches.”  How  do  the  contributions  of  the  Swatow  Chris¬ 
tians  compare  with  those  of  the  feeble  Karens,  after  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century  of  training  from  yourself  and  your  able 
co-laborers?  The  Karen  churches  which  absolutely  support 
themselves,  their  worship,  and  their  village  schools,  are  num¬ 
bered  by  hundreds.  The  Karen  Christians  in  Bassein,  Bangoon, 
and  Shwaygyeen  are  nearly  independent  of  foreign  aid,  and  are 
reaching  out  after  the  heathen  in  distant  regions  more  and  more. 
You  know  the  importance  of  the  principle;  for  in  1872  you 
wrote,  “  It  is  a  great  gain  to  aim  for  self-supporting  churches 
from  the  veiy  outset.”  For  the  degree  of  success  attained, 
we  must  go  to  your  own  reports. 

For  nine  of  the  years  between  1873  and  1885,  I  find  no 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


151 


report  given  of  the  amount  of  native  contributions  on  your 
field.  ...  In  1879  the  mission  was  paying  three  preachers  at 
the  rate  of  $7  a  month  each,  two  at  $5,  and  ten  at  $4.  Fif¬ 
teen  Bible-students  were  paid  at  the  rate  of  $2  a  month  each. 
Boys  in  the  central  school,  under  ten,  were  paid  $.50,  and  those 
from  ten  to  twenty  $1,  a  month.  Young  men  over  twenty  were 
paid  $1.50.  Girls  received  $1  a  month  each.  There  were 
also  twenty-one  Bible-women  to  be  provided  for  by  American 
Christians.  ...  In  1881,  $234  are  reported  from  715  clmrch- 
members.  In  1882  the  largest  contributions  of  the  period  are 
reported,  an  aggregate  of  $658.93  from  781  church-members. 
If  their  value  is  not  included  in  this  sum,  there  should  be  added 
to  this  the  sites  for  three  chapels  and  a  house.  For  1883,  1884, 
1885,  no  report  of  contributions  is  given. 

During  all  this  time,  the  average  of  subsidies  drawn  from 
America  for  the  support  of  the  preachers,  Bible-women,  and 
schools  in  Swatow,  has  been  not  less  than  $3,500  a  year ;  while 
the  average  contributions  of  the  native  Christians,  so  far  as 
reported,  is  hardly  one-tenth  of  the  subsidies.  I  ask,  in  turn, 
have  these  facts  no  bearing  upon  your  willingness  to  have  the 
infamous  “  No.  2  ”  and  its  naughty  fellows  burned,  as  well  as 
included  in  a  Baptist  pope’s  Index  Expurgatorius ? 

If,  after  twenty-five  years  of  labor  in  the  ancestral  district 
of  the  Tie  Chiu  people,  you  have  succeeded,  Dr.  Ashmore,  in 
establishing  one  church  which  has  supported  its  own  pastor  for 
three  }Tears  in  succession,  without  aid  from  America,  the  reports 
of  the  Swatow  Mission  fail  to  show  it.  Your  theories  are  ad¬ 
mirable,  and  much  of  3-our  work  is  solid  and  excellent ;  but  the 
impression  left  by  a  perusal  of  your  annual  reports  (so  far  as 
the  self-support  feature  goes)  is  that  of  a  series  of  interesting 
experiments,  instructive  to  a  certain  extent,  and  hopeful  per¬ 
haps,  but  not  reaching  permanent  or  striking  results. 

Finally.  I  note  that,  from  your  point  view,  the  author  of  these 
tracts  is  pretty  nearly  a  fool,  as  well  as  a  foot-pad.  Three  lines 
below  the  quotation  which  you  wrest  into  a  denial  of  the  right 
of  his  brethren  to  reply  to  his  strictures,  he  wrote:  “Let  the 


152 


PREFATORY  AND  PERSONAL. 


defence  be  what  it  may,  we  submit  that  a  thorough  reform  in 
our  principles  and  methods  is  called  for.”  Utterly  indefensible 
as  I  believed  and  still  believe  to  be  a  course  which  has  resulted  in 
doubling  our  expenditures  per  man  within  less  than  forty  years, 
in  an  outlay  sixteen  per  cent  per  man  greater  than  that  of  the 
Southern  Baptist  Convention,  twenty-eight  per  cent  greater 
than  that  of  the  American  Board,  and  fifty-three  per  cent 
greater  than  the  average  of  all  the  Protestant  missionary  socie¬ 
ties  of  the  world  (100),  I  still  expected  and  desired  such 
defence  to  be  made  as  was  possible  ;  and  my  language  plainly 
implied  this.  That  which  I  deprecated  was  the  “  conspiracy 
of  silence,”  which  has  been  tried  unsuccessfully  ;  the  u  recrimi¬ 
nation  ”  which  finds  its  illustration  in  your  own  “  open  letter,” 
and  in  the  numerous  charges  of  inconsistency,  wrong  motives, 
etc.,  which  have  been  brought  against  myself ;  the  refusal  to 
admit  mistakes  which  have  been  proven  ;  and  the  determination 
to  persist  in  courses  which  can  but  weaken  the  confidence  of 
supporters,  and  cripple  the  resources  of  the  society.  The  facts 
which  have  been  brought  to  light  in  the  first  three  tracts,  and 
those  which  remain  to  be  brought  to  light  in  Nos.  4  and  5,  are 
not  to  be  ignored,  explained  away,  or  denied.  They  are  stern 
facts,  and  will  soon  or  late  make  an  impression  upon  the  con- 
stituenc}'  of  the  Missionary  Union  all  the  deeper  for  attempts 
like  yours  to  break  their  force,  to  cover  them  up,  and  to  escape 
from  the  lessons  which  they  most  plainty  teach. 

In  all  fidelity,  but  cordially,  yours, 

C.  H.  CARPENTER. 

Newton  Centre,  Mass.,  Dec.  15,  1885. 


SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


The  answer  to  the  question  implied  in  our  title  shall  at  least 
be  prompt  and  direct :  By  continuing  on  and  on  in  the  bad*, 
old  way.  Make  no  change.  Let  things  drift,  as  they  have 
drifted  since  1878,  and  neither  we  nor  our  children’s  children 
shall  ever  see  a  self-supporting  Baptist  school  in  India,  China, 
Japan,  or  Africa. 

“Any  new  set  of  conditions  occurring  to  an  animal  which 
render  its  food  and  safety  very  easily  attained,  seem  to  lead, 
as  a  rule,  to  degeneration :  just  as  an  active,  healthy  man 
sometimes  degenerates  when  he  becomes  suddenly  possessed  of 
a  fortune ;  or  as  Rome  degenerated  when  possessed  of  the 
riches  of  the  ancient  world.  The  habit  of  parasitism  clearly 
acts  upon  animal  organization  in  this  way.  Let  the  parasitic 
life  once  he  secured ,  and  away  go  legs ,  jaws ,  eyes,  and  ears ;  the 
active ,  highly  gifted  crab ,  insect ,  or  annelid  may  become  a  mere 
sac ,  absorbing  nourishment  and  laying  eggs.”  1 

“  Parasitism  is  one  of  the  gravest  crimes  in  Nature.  It  is  a 
breach  of  the  law  of  evolution  :  Thou  shalt  evolve,  thou  shalt 
develop  all  thy  faculties  to  the  full,  thou  shalt  attain  to  the 
highest  conceivable  perfection  of  thy  race,  and  so  perfect  thy 
race.”  2 

1  E.  Ray  Laiilcester,  “  Degeneration,”  p  33. 

2  Drummond’s  “  Natural  Law  in  tlie  Spiritual  World,”  Se7ni-Pctrasitism , 
p.  319. 

153 


r 


154  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 

“  To  sustain  life,  physical,  mental,  moral,  or  spiritual,  some 
sort  of  food  is  essential.  To  secure  an  adequate  supply,  each 
organism  is  provided  with  special  and  appropriate  faculties. 
But  the  final  gain  to  the  organism  does  not  depend  so  much  on 
the  actual  amount  of  food  procured  as  on  the  exercise  required 
to  obtain  it.  In  one  sense,  the  exercise  is  only  a  means  to  an 
end,  namely,  the  finding  food  ;  but  in  another  and  equally  real 
sense,  the  exercise  is  the  end,  the  food  the  means  to  attain  that. 
.  .  .  Without  food  exercise  is  impossible,  but  without  exercise 
food  is  useless.  .  .  .  Any  'principle  which  secures  food  to  the 
individual  without  the  expenditure  of  work  is  injurious ,  and 
accompanied  by  the  degeneration  and  loss  of  parts.” 

“Food  [education]  too  easily  acquired  means  food  [educa¬ 
tion]  without  that  accompaniment  of  discipline  which  is  infinitely 
more  valuable  than  the  food  [education]  itself.  It  means  the 
possibility  of  a  life  which  is  mere  existence.”  1 

Keep  it  before  the  people:  A  threefold  burden ,  instead  of 
the  one  simple  burden  ichich  the  Lord  Jesus  imposes,  is  precisely 
ivhat  most  foreign  missionaries  and  most  managers  of  foreign 
missions  are  ever  seeking  to  lay  upon  the  Christians  of  England 
and  America.  Keep  it  before  the  people,  also,  that  by  far  the 
most  mischievous  effect  of  this  policy  is  to  scatter  broadcast 
throughout  the  mission  fields  the  seeds  of  a  parasitic  groivtli,  and 
to  water  the  verdant  but  destructive  pests  with  the  dew  of  a 
mistaken  charity.  In  “  Tract  No.  3,”  we  traced  the  evil  in  its 
relations  to  the  native  ministry.  In  this  number  we  shall  try 
to  portray  the  evil  in  its  relations  to  mission  schools  and  native 
education. 

OPPOSING  SCHEMES  OF  EDUCATION  IN  MISSIONS. 

Schools  in  their  proper  time  and  place,  I  believe  in  as  firmly 
as  any  of  my  critics.  Christ’s  people,  the  world  over,  desire 
education.  They  deserve  it  too  (just  as  soon  as  they  are  able 
and  willing  to  pay  for  it) ,  and  will  have  it.  With  me,  and  in 


1  The  same,  Parasitism ,  pp.  848,  349. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED . 


155 


this  paper,  it  is  not  a  question  of  schools  or  no  schools.  It  is 
a  question  of  what  mission  schools  are  for,  when  they  are  to  be 
established,  and  by  whom  they  are  to  be  supported.  A  sharp 
distinction  is  to  be  made  between  those  who  follow  up  the  work 
of  evangelization,  as  fast  and  as  far  as  results  are  reached, 
with  Christian  schools  called  for  and  supported  in  the  main  by 
the  native  converts  themselves  ;  and  those  who,  in  advance  of 
any  extensive  turning  of  the  people  to  God,  or  before  the  spon¬ 
taneous,  self-helpful  demand  arises,  enter  upon  schools  as  an 
evangelizing  agency ,  drawing  upon  the  mission  treasury  for  the 
cost.  The  one  scheme  is  natural,  healthful,  and  justified  by  the 
experience  of  centuries  :  the  other,  while  it  tends  undeniably  to 
parasitism,  is  one  of  man’s  latest  inventions,  not  yet  out  of  the 
experimental  stage.  The  one  magnifies  the  New  Testament, 
trusts  in  the  efficacy  of  the  gospel  and  in  the  ever-continued 
uplifting  work  of  the  Spirit :  the  other  turns  a  square  corner 
upon  the  path  marked  out  by  Paul,  Peter,  and  John,  distrusts 
that  which  the  apostle  declared  to  be  u  the  power  of  God  and 
the  wisdom  of  God,”  and  substitutes  the  teaching  of  English 
and  modern  science,  with  the  free  use  of  money,  for  the  simple 
preaching  of  Christ  and  him  crucified.  The  abandonment  of 
schools  in  missions  is  not  advocated  in  this  series  of  tracts  ; 
only  the  reconstruction  or  abandonment  of  schools  which  have 
been  introduced  as  an  evangelizing  agency,  and  schools  erected 
prematurely,  in  advance  of  the  willingness  or  the  ability  of  the 
converts  to  bear  the  chief  part  in  sustaining  them.  We  con¬ 
tend  not  for  the  overthrow  of  schools,  but  for  a  return  to  the 
New-Testament  ideal  of  missions, — the  universal  preaching  of 
the  gospel,  in  humble  reliance  upon  the  Holy  Spirit’s  blessing, 
and  the  substitution  of  Indigenous  Schools  on  the  basis  of  self- 
support  in  the  main,  in  place  of  the  present  slip-shod,  eleemosy¬ 
nary  system. 


A  PERSONAL  EXPLANATION. 

Those  who  charge  the  author  with  setting  small  store  by 
education  forget  his  record.  Appointed  in  1862  to  engage  with 


r 


156  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


Dr.  Binney  in  the  work  of  Karen  theological  education,  the 
first  five  years  of  his  missionary  life  were  given  to  that  work, 
and  it  satisfied  him.  The  death  of  Rev.  B.  C.  Thomas  had 
left  the  large  circle  of  Bassein  Sgau  churches  without  a  leader. 
At  the  invitation  of  the  Karen  pastors,  as  well  as  of  the  Exec¬ 
utive  Committee,  he  went  to  that  important  field  ;  and  speedily 
found  himself  immersed  in  a  great  educational  work,  as  well  as 
in  “  the  care  of  all  the  churches.”  During  the  entire  period 
of  his  connection  wfitli  the  work  in  Bassein,  more  than  half  of 
his  time  and  strength  was  given  to  school  superintendence,  to 
teaching,  and  to  the  thorough  equipment  of  the  station  school 
with  buildings,  furniture,  apparatus,  and  an  endowment.  As 
things  were  at  that  time  and  in  that  place,  he  still  thinks  that 
he  did  the  best  thing  for  Bassein  and  for  the  heathen  world 
that  he  could  do.  The  system  of  schools  that  he  wrought  for 
was  self-supporting ,  and  in  his  judgment  he  was  solving  the 
educational  problem  for  all  Burma.  Whether  the  solution  which 
was  effected  in  those  years  of  intense  labor  and  of  absolute 
self-devotion  is  ever  accepted  by  the  missionaries  and  native 
Christians  in  other  parts  of  Burma,  or  not,  the  problem  was 
successfully  solved  in  Bassein,  and  it  has  been  solved  as  yet 
nowhere  else.  American  silver  has  been  at  the  basis  of  all  the 
other  experiments,  vitiating  the  result,  and  making  permanent 
success  difficult  if  not  impossible. 

I  have  made  many  mistakes,  but  the  great  mistake  of  my  life 
was  committed  when  I  allowed  myself  to  accept  the  presidency 
of  the  Rangoon  Baptist  College  in  1873.  I  allowed  myself  to 
forget  the  incomparable  advantages  of  Bassein.  I  dreamed  of 
harmonizing  the  conflicting  views  of  my  brethren,  and  of  con¬ 
centrating  the  efforts  and  prayers  of  good  men  all  over  Burma 
in  behalf  of  a  central  Karen  college.  Before  leaving  America, 
I  wrote  an  article  for  the  “Magazine”  (March,  1874),  which 
urged  American  Christians  to  give  two  hundred  thousand  dollars 
for  the  equipment  and  endowment  of  the  proposed  “  college.” 
It  is  allowable  for  men  to  change  their  minds  on  occasion,  and 
it  is  possible  for  the  wisest  of  them  to  grow  in  wisdom  wfitli 


/ 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED.  157 

advancing  years.  Before  I  had  been  in  Rangoon  six  weeks,  I 
saw  the  futility  of  all  ray  hopes,  and  was  homesick  for  the  co¬ 
operation  and  sympathy  of  the  noble  people  whom  I  had  left 
behind  in  Bassein.  The  article  in  the  “Magazine”  is  still 
quoted  against  me  ;  but,  so  far  as  I  know,  it  failed  to  draw  a 
dollar  from  the  pockets  of  American  Baptists,  and  I  have  never 
been  able  to  regret  that  failure. 

Schools?  No  American  Christian  in  his  right  mind  can  doubt 
that  Christian  schools  are  a  prime  necessity  for  Christians  under 
all  skies  ;  but  let  the  schools  be  self-originated  and  self-support¬ 
ing,  like  those  in  Bassein.  Active  aid  may  be  necessary  in  the 
outset  for  the  training  of  native  preachers,  but  this  necessity 
soon  passes  away  ;  and,  aside  from  that,  let  almost  every  thing 
be  left  to  the  Christian  instincts  of  the  newly  converted  people, 
and  to  the  providential  improvement  of  their  resources,  under 
the  advice  and  encouragement  of  their  missionaries.  Let  soci¬ 
eties  and  missionaries  plant  themselves  immovably  on  the  truth 
that  preaching  the  gospel  is  the  one  great  debt  which  they  owe 
to  the  nations.  Then,  when  the  seed  springs  up,  and  the  infant 
churches  plead  that  their  children  may  be  taught  to  read  the 
wonderful  Book  and  the  wonderful  works  of  God  in  their  own 
tongue,  let  the,  work  be  looked  upon  as  tlieir  work ;  let  the 
provision  made  be  inexpensive,  and  gauged  strictly  according 
to  their  ability  to  pay  therefor.  Sometimes,  as  in  Bassein,  the 
eagerness  and  self-sacrifice  of  the  converts  may  be  extraordi¬ 
nary  :  the  hope  that  a  general  school  of  high  order  will  grow 
out  of  the  vigorous  native  beginning  may  be  well  founded. 
In  such  a  case  it  may  be  judicious  and  wise  for  a  missionary 
to  supplement  the  contributions  of  his  people  from  his  own 
resources,  or  from  the  generosity  of  personal  friends.  Me 
would  not  lay  down  an  inflexible  rule.  And  if,  perchance,  self- 
support  should  engender  a  spirit  of  manly  independence,  and  a 
readiness  to  accept  the  responsibilities  of  complete  self-control 
at  an  earlier  period  than  we  had  expected  or  desired,  better 
that  a  thousand  times  than  the  selfish,  sluggish  inertness  of  the 
absorptive  sacculinci. 


/ 


158  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCTIOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 

THE  PROMOTION  OF  PARASITISM  AN  AVOWED  POLICY. 

In  March,  1878,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Executive  Committee 
unanimously  resolved  that  “  mission  funds  are  not  contributed 
for  secular  purposes,”  and  that  “  no  station  school  ought  to  be 
dependent,  for  any  considerable  period  or  amount,  upon  mis¬ 
sion  funds”  (see  p.  17).  From  this  sound  position  our  leaders 
have  sadly  departed.  In  proof  of  this,  the  rapid  and  alarming 
increase  in  the  amount  of  subsidies  paid  to  our  missions,  chiefly 
for  school  work,  has  been  shown  at  length  in  “Tract  No.  1.” 
As  further  and  conclusive  proof  that  this  change  of  policy  has 
not  been  accidental  or  unintentional,  we  submit  a  few  quota¬ 
tions  from  published  declarations  of  our  mission  secretaries.1 

At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Missionary  Union  in  1884,  Sec¬ 
retary  Luther,  as  chairman  of  the  committee  on  missions  in 
Burma,  used  this  language  :  — 

“  It  cannot  be  said  that  too  much  money  has  been  or  is  be¬ 
ing  spent  upon  the  education  of  the  seventy-five  thousand  (?) 
children  of  Christian  parents  in  Burma.  .  .  .  The  time  is  near 
at  hand  when  increased  educational  facilities  will  be  demanded, 
and  must  be  supplied.  ...  It  is  altogether  probable  that  the 
churches  in  some  districts  will  always  need  assistance ,  either 
from  America  or  from  their  wealthier  brethren  in  Burma.  .  .  . 
The  missions  in  Burma  are  ...  all  too  feebly  supported  by 
American  Baptists.”  The  report  was  adopted  by  the  Union. 

Secretary  McKenzie,  in  the  report  of  the  committee  on  the 
Telugu  Missions,  read  as  follows  :  — 

“  Education ,  both  secular  and  religious,  must  be  instantly 
and  amply  provided  for.  It  is  gratifying  and  encouraging  to 
learn  that  this  want  is  at  this  hour  being  felt,  and,  to  some 
extent,  provision  is  being  made  to  meet  it.”  The  report  was 

1  The  drifting  undoubtedly  began  on  the  foreign  field.  In  a  printed  cir¬ 
cular  addressed  to  the  missionaries  by  Dr.  Murdock  as  long  ago  as  April  2, 
1878,  he  asked  them  to  state  whether  it  was,  in  their  judgment,  “expedient 
to  establish  such  [boarding]  schools  as  evangelizing  agencies .”  From  the 
missionaries  the  contagion  soon  spread  to  the  secretaries. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


159 


adopted.  In  his  report  on  the  same  mission  for  1885,  Secre¬ 
tary  Murdock  himself  says  :  — 

“The  vast  and  urgent  needs  on  the  Ongole  fields,  of  appli¬ 
ances  for  the  further  growth  and  firm  establishment  of  the  work, 
are  being  supplied.  During  the  hasty  visit  of  Dr.  Clough  to 
America,  large  and  generous  donations  were  made  through  him 
to  place  the  important  educational  work  at  Ongole  in  a  good 
working  condition.  Schools  for  the  education  of  the  natives 
are  also  being  established  at  the  new  stations.  A  new  building 
at  Ramapatam  has  been  completed,  .  .  .  which  is  one  of  the 
finest  for  educational  purposes  in  India ;  and  an  industrial 
institution  for  girls  is  soon  to  be  established  at  Nellore,  which 
promises  much  for  the  future  development  of  the  women  in 
the  Telugu  Mission.  ...  A  Christian  nation  has  sprung  into 
being ,  and  all  the  appliances  of  a  Christian  civilization  must  soon 
be  provided  to  secure  for  this  people  a  safe  and  normal  develop¬ 
ment  into  an  established  and  well-ordered  Christian  community .” 
[Italics  by  Editor.] 

Have  the  thousands  of  native  converts  an}^  hand  at  all  in 
these  broad  and  expensive  plans  ?  Has  their  voice  been  heard 
asking  for  these  costly  facilities,  and  have  their  offerings  been 
brought  in  for  the  work?  If  so,  the  reports  fail  to  show  the 
fact.  Because  twenty-five  thousand  out  of  a  population  of  fif¬ 
teen  million  Telugus  have  been  baptized  by  us,  “  a  Christian 
nation  has  sprung  into  being,”  and  it  is  the  duty  of  American 
Baptists  to  spring  and  provide  for  that  “nation”  “all  the 
appliances  of  a  Christian  civilization.”  Does  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  make  that  duty  quite  so  clear?  Does  common-sense,  even, 
approve  of  such  outlay,  in  advance  of  any  popular  movement 
towards  self-help  in  these  directions?  And  in  taking  up  this 
burden  at  the  beck  of  our  leaders,  is  there  no  danger  that 
preaching  the  gospel  to  the  millions  of  Telugus  who  are  un¬ 
reached  as  yet  will  be  delayed  ? 

It  will  at  once  be  alleged,  that  most  of  the  money  used  for 
these  objects  was  given  specifically ;  but  observe  how  fully  the 
Secretary  indorses  these  “specifics”  in  his  report  (“Maga- 


160  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 

zine,”  July,  1885,  p.  251.  See  also  Mr.  Manley’s  statement, 
p.  260).  When  the  Secretary  and  the  Committee  officially  do 
all  in  their  power  to  encourage  such  donations,  when  the  gifts 
pass  through  the  treasury,  when  they  are  entered  on  the  hooks 
and  are  formally  appropriated  by  them  to  the  objects  named,  as 
they  always  are,  how  can  the  executive  officers  rightfully  escape 
the  responsibility  of  “  specific  donations,”  as  they  sometimes 
seem  inclined  to  do?  Rare  indeed  is  it  for  a  missionary  to 
make  an  appeal  to  the  churches  without  their  approval,  tacit  or 
expressed.  In  his  “Apostolic  Missions,”  the  secretary  has 
undoubtedly  given  us  his  real  opinions  ;  but  opinions  which  are 
based  on  New-Testament  principles  even  can  only  be  carried 
into  practice,  sometimes,  at  the  cost  of  a  little  evanescent  popu¬ 
larity.  A  shipmaster  who  should  be  persuaded  by  his  passen¬ 
gers  to  go  counter  to  the  Admiralty  Charts  and  Horsford’s 
“  Sailing  Directions  ”  might  easily  find  himself  and  his  charge 
on  the  rocks.  It  is  no  more  difficult  for  a  great  society  to  come 
to  grief  under  such  management. 

O  O 

$ 

SCHOOLS  AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  AGENCY. 

In  the  diffusion  of  information,  in  quickening  the  missionary 
spirit  in  the  churches,  in  the  systematic  collection  of  funds,  and 
in  the  sending  forth  of  assistant  missionaries  in  large  numbers, 

O  O  J 

the  Christian  women  of  America,  organized  as  missionary  soci¬ 
eties  in  all  of  'the  leading  denominations,  have  done  a  grand 
work.  It  is  painfully  apparent,  however,  from  the  reports  of 
some  of  these  societies,  that  schools,  rather  than  direct  evan¬ 
gelistic  work  for  the  conversion  of  heathen  women  and  children 
and  for  their  confirmation  in  the  faith,  have  assumed  the  chief, 
if  not  almost  the  exclusive,  place  in  their  efforts.  If  “the  Chris¬ 
tianization  of  women  in  foreign  lands”  be  “the  leading  object 
of  [their]  organization,”  as  the  constitution  of  the  Woman’s 
Baptist  Foreign  Missionary  Society  affirms,  how  happens  it  that 
two-thirds  if  not  three-fourths  of  the  recent  reports  (foreign 
department)  of  both  the  Eastern  and  Western  societies  are 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


1G1 


taken  up  with  school  and  medical  work?  Are  women  to  be 
saved  in  a  different  way  from  men?  We  do  not  doubt  for  an 
instant  the  justice  of  their  claim  that  these  societies  have  held 
themselves  from  the  outset  as  strictly  auxiliary  to  the  parent 
society ;  that  their  course  has  been  approved,  if  it  has  not  been 
suggested,  by  the  officers  of  the  Missionary  Union  at  every 
step.  They  have  been  only  too  loyal,  and  too  ready  to  divert 
their  beneficence  from  the  spiritual  welfare  of  their  own  sex  to 
the  secular  advantage  of  the  sons  and  brothers  of  the  heathen 
women  whom  they  fain  would  save.  To  justify  themselves  in 
this  course,  some  of  the  leading  women  appear  to  have  adopted 
the  theory  that  Christian  schools  are  an  evangelizing  agency. 
With  the  best  intentions,  and  acting  all  along  under  the  advice 
and  direction  of  the  secretaries  and  missionaries  of  the  general 
society,  it  still  seems  to  be  true  that  they  have  been  educating 
themselves  and  training  the  denomination  away  from  the  simple 
New-Testament  ideal  of  missions,  and  into  this  modern  method 
of  saving  the  nations  by  means  of  arithmetic  and  the  English 
language,  sanctified  by  prayer  and  a  daily  Bible-lesson.  What 
other  construction  can  be  placed  upon  the  “oracular”  words 
which  are  made  the  “key-note”  of  the  Eastern  Secretary’s 
report  of  the  foreign  department  for  1884  (p.  43)  ;  or  upon 
such  expressions  as  these,  taken  from  the  report  and  another 
official  paper  for  1885? 

“Our  schools  are,  in  the  main,  direct,  evangelistic  agencies.” 
.  .  .  “These  schools  have  no  value  to  her,  except  as  an  evan¬ 
gelizing  agency.” 

It  is  well  understood  that  our  Eastern  sisters  (noble  women 
all  of  them)  are  so  fixed  in  these  new  views,  that  it  was  with 
extreme  reluctance  that  they  partially  acceded  to  a  request  of 
the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Missionary  Union  by  a  tempo¬ 
rary  reduction  of  ten  per  cent  in  their  appropriations  to  schools, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  present  year. 


162  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


THE  DELUSION  RIFE  AT  THE  FRONT. 

We  have  nowhere  seen  a  more  frank  and  explicit  statement 
of  this  dangerous  theory  than  the  following  from  Rev.  A.  Bun¬ 
ker  of  Toungoo.  Must  we  accept  it  as  the  deliberate  expression 
of  an  unalterable  belief?  In  his  “  Review  of  4  Self-Support/  ” 
pp.  12,  13,  he  writes:  — 

“  Are  we  confined  to  apostolic  methods?  God  existed  before 
the  apostles  ;  and  as  he  did  not  see  fit  to  use  the  apostles  as 
he  did  the  patriarchs  and  prophets,  so  he  may  not  deem  it  wise 
to  use  modern  missionaries  as  he  did  the  apostles.  Why  set 
bounds  to  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit?  Truth  is  fixed,  but 
what  has  fixed  the  methods  of  declaring  it?  We  may  safely 
assume,  that,  always  the  same,  the  Holy  Spirit  uses  his  people 
in  his  own  way,  and  inspires  them  with  wisdom  for  his  work. 
Apostolic  methods  were  for  apostolic  times  :  modern  missionary 
methods  are  for  modern  times.  Conditions  of  work  have 
changed.  The  heathen  of  to-day  are  not  like  the  heathen  of 
the  apostles’  day.  .  .  .  Modern  missions  dare  to  attack  well- 
compacted  systems  of  false  faiths  ;  .  .  .  but  who  expects  these 
giants  to  surrender  on  demand,  or  yield  to  old  methods  of  war¬ 
fare,  makes  a  mistake,  we  believe.  One  -might  as  well  retain 
the  old  shield  and  spear  for  modern  warfare  because  they  fought 
■with  those  weapons  in  apostolic  times.  As  in  modern  warfare, 
so  in  spiritual  warfare,  we  have  given  us  new  weapons  with 
which  to  carry  on  the  fight  of  faith,  as  schools,  the  printing- 
press,  etc.  .  .  .  The  unanimity  with  which  missionaries  return 
to  the  system  of  evangelizing  by  schools,  as  well  as  by  preach¬ 
ing,  and  the  tenacity  with  which  they  hold  on  to  this  method  of 
wrork,  shows  in  which  way  the  Spirit  is  leading  them.” 

This  language  has  a  familiar  sound.  In  the  past,  I  myself 
have  written,  in  a  somewhat  similar  strain,  words  which  I  should 
now  feel  obliged  to  reconstruct  or  repudiate.  Unitarianism  has 
long  insisted  that  the  heathen  must  be  civilized  before  they  can 
be  converted  ;  and  in  so  far  as  your  words,  my  valiant,  warm¬ 
hearted  brother,  elevate  schools  and  the  printing-press  to  a 


IIOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


1G3 


level  with  “the  preached  gospel,”  as  agencies  for  the  salvation 
of  the  heathen,  you  are  committed  to  a  subtle  and  dangerous 
heresy.  This  is  not  the  King’s  daughter,  modestly  arrayed  ix 
raiment  of  needle-work,  but  Unitarianism  without  so  much  as  a 
diaphanous  skirt  to  cover  her  nakedness.  Whenever  you  or  I 
wander  from  our  old-fashioned  Baptist  faith  to  the  extent  which 
this  language  seems  to  indicate,  a  visit  to  America  and  a  course 
under  Mr.  Moody,  or  one  of  Dr.  Gordon’s  sermons  on  the  Holy 
Spirit,  taken  with  a  view  to  re-conversion,  may  be  earnestly  rec¬ 
ommended.  That  any  number  of  Mr.  Bunker’s  constituents  in 
this  country  believe  that  Paul’s  weapons  are  antiquated,  I  can 
hardly  suppose  ;  nor  will  I  at  present  admit  that  my  old  friend 
himself  really  thinks  that  he  is  inspired,  or  that  the  simple 
gospel  has  lost  its  power. 

THE  TRUE  TEST  OF  “NEED.”  . 

Some  of  our  missions  are  established  among  small  peoples, 
numbering  but  a  few  thousand  souls  at  most.  Other  missions 
to  the  more  civilized  and  powerful  peoples  number  but  a  few 
scores  or  hundreds  of  converts  after  many  years  of  persistent 
labor  and  the  outlay  of  vast  sums  of  money.  From  the  Amer¬ 
ican  point  of  view,  there  is  not  one  of  the  least  of  these  mis¬ 
sions  that  does  not  need  primary  schools,  grammar  schools,  high 
schools,  a  college  and  theological  seminary  ;  not  one  that  does 
not  need,  the  entire  Bible,  a  Christian  literature,  text-books, 
almanacs,  newspapers,  etc.,  immediately.  But  do  the  converts 
themselves  feel  the  need  of  all  these  expensive  agencies  and 
appliances?  It  may  be  that  we  are  not  the  best  judges  of  what 
they  really  need. 

It  would  seem  that  cargoes  of  soap,  tons  of  insect-powder, 
hogsheads  of  “Pain  Killer”  and  “Expectorant,”  are  needed 
also.  If  the  ladies  of  the  Moral  Reform  Society  would  charter 
a  cotton-factory,  and  run  it  for  a  hundred  years  or  so,  sending 
the  entire  product  to  mission-fields,  with  pious  dressmakers  to 
teach  the  women  how  to  clothe  themselves  and  their  children 


164  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


decently,  it  would  be  a  good  work,  promotive  of  health,  mor¬ 
ality,  and  religion.  Fortunately  it  is  found,  however,  that  all 
the  desired  benefits  easily,  naturally,  and  most  economically, 
follow  the  conversion  of  the  people  to  Christianity. 

And  unless  they  appreciate  their  value  somewhat,  and  really 
want  them  enough  to  sacrifice  somewhat  to  obtain  them,  it  is  of 
little  use  for  us  to  give  these  goods  to  our  converts  gratuitously. 
The  sure  test  and  measure  of  their  desires  and  of  their  ability  to 
profit  by  such  advantages  is  their  willingness  and  ability  to  meet 
a  fair  proportion  of  the  cost.  Burma  has  had  for  many  genera¬ 
tions  a  system  of  indigenous  schools,  by  which  a  larger  propor¬ 
tion  of  the  men  and  boys  acquire  the  ability  to  read  and  write 
than  can  be  found  in  most  of  the  countries  of  Christian  Europe. 
These  schools  are  housed,  the  teachers  are  paid,  and  the  pupils 
are  clothed  and  fed,  by  the  people  themselves,  without  a  particle 
of  foreign  aid.  Is  it  too  much,  then,  to  expect  that  our  native 
converts  in  Burma,  especially  those  of  the  Burman  race,  will 
feed  their  own  school-children,  pay  the  native  teachers,  and, 
with  the  ready  aid  of  government  and  local  friends,  provide 
dormitory  and  school  buildings?  There  has  been  neither  rea¬ 
son,  justice,  nor  a  proper  regard  to  propriety  and  the  future 
well-being  of  the  converts  themselves,  in  loading  these  burdens 
upon  American  Christians,  as  so  many  of  our  missionaries,  sec¬ 
onded  by  our  secretaries  and  mission-boards,  have  done  in  the 
past.  Whenever  the  natives  are  ready  to  assume  these  burdens, 
and  only  when  this  is  done,  I,  for  one,  should  consider  it  expe¬ 
dient  to  send  out  and  support,  for  a  limited  time,  competent 
American  teachers,  for  the  superintendence  of  the  needed  schools 
and  for  the  instruction  of  the  highest  classes.  As  we  have  said 
before,  in  exceptional  cases,  where  marked  eagerness  for  Chris¬ 
tian  education  and  great  self-sacrifice  are  manifested,  some  fur¬ 
ther  aid  may  be  wisely  extended  to  native  Christians,  but  not 
from  missionary  societies  as  such. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


165 


HOW  THE  BRITISH  GOVERNMENT  DOES  IT. 

The  British  government  in  India  is  conducted  by  men  of  rare 
practical  wisdom  ;  and  in  their  efforts  to  foster  education  they 
aim  systematically  at  the  building-up  of  permanent,  self-sup¬ 
porting  schools.  We  give  in  a  condensed  form  a  few  of  the 
grant-in-aid  rules  (1885)  for  British  Burma.  The  contrast 
between  the  conditions  which  the  government  enforces,  and  the 
lax  and  un-business-like  method  of  mission  grants  and  “specific 
donations”  to  schools  in  far-away  pagan  lands,  is  sufficiently 
striking. 

1.  The  grants  are  given  impartially  to  all  schools  which  impart 
a  sound  secular  education  ;  but  before  any  application  for  aid 
is  considered,  the  government  must  be  satisfied  that  the  school 
is  under  responsible  management,  and  that  its  managers  will  be 
answerable  for  its  permanence- for  some  given  time. 

2.  Full  reports  and  returns  in  prescribed  forms  must  be  sub¬ 
mitted  regularly  to  the  education  department ;  and  the  accounts, 
books,  and  records,  as  well  as  the  school  itself,  must  be  open  to 
inspection  and  examination  at  all  times. 

3.  Grants  are  given  to  those  schools  only  (normal  and  girls’ 
schools  excepted)  at  which  fees  are  levied  from  the  scholars,  at 
rates  approved  by  the  director  of  public  instruction.  Contribu¬ 
tions  made  by  the  Christian  Karen  communities  in  aid  of  their 
schools  may,  with  the  sanction  of  the  director,  be  accepted  in 
lieu  of  fees. 

4.  The  number  of  holidays  is  regulated,  and  the  daily  attend¬ 
ance  of  the  pupils  must  be  recorded  in  forms  furnished  for  the 
purpose. 

5.  Managers  of  schools  desiring  aid  must  give  to  the  govern¬ 
ment  full  information  as  to  the  course  of  study,  the  superintend¬ 
ence  and  management,  the  number  and  grade  of  the  pupils  in 
actual  attendance,  the  extent  and  nature  of  the  }oecuniary  re¬ 
sources  of  the  school ,  the  details  of  the  proposed  monthly  expend¬ 
iture,  the  nature  and  extent  of  aid  sought  for  from  government, 


166  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


with  particulars  as  to  the  existence  of  other  schools  within  a 
radius  of  six  miles. 

6.  The  grants  depend  largely  on  the  number  of  pupils  who 
pass  the  yearly  examinations.  There  is  also  an  “  attendance  ” 
grant. 

7.  “  In  no  case  will  the  total  of  all  grants  to  a  school  exceed 
in  amount  the  sum  contributed  from  private  sources  in  the  pre¬ 
vious  year.  Schools  in  which  less  than  twenty  per  cent  of  those 
on  the  average  daily7  attendance-roll  succeed  in  passing  by  the 
respective  standards  in  two  or  more  subjects  will  be  considered 
inefficient,  and  will  be  liable  to  be  struck  off  the  grant-in-aid 
register.” 

8.  “Special  grants”  towards  the  cost  of  the  erection,  pur¬ 
chase,  or  enlargement  of  school-buildings,  and  towards  the 
cost  of  school-furniture,  maps,  etc.,  are  given  only  on  condition 
(1)  that  evidence  of  the  necessity  for  the  erection,  etc.,  shall  be 
adduced  ;  (2)  that  in  each  case  the  managers  and  friends  of  the 
school  shall  contribute  an  equivalent  to  the  amount  of  the  grant; 
(3)  satisfactory  plans  and  estimates  must  be  submitted  before 
the  commencement  of  the  undertaking ;  (4)  previous  to  the 
payment  of  the  grant,  a  responsible  engineer  or  other  officer 
deputed  to  examine  the  building  must  certify  that  the  work  has 
been  executed  in  accordance  with  the  approved  plan  ;  also  the 
managers  shall  declare  that  they  have  funds  on  hand  sufficient, 
when  supplemented  by  the  grant,  to  clear  off  all  the  debts  in¬ 
curred  in  the  execution  of  the  work.  “  Grants  are  not  given  to 
pay  off  debts  for  building ,  or  in  consideration  of  former  expendi¬ 
ture  for  building ,  nor  for  the  maintenance  of  buildings.” 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  stimulating  to  self-support  these  rules 
are,  or  would  be  if  missionaries  did  not  so  generally  resort  to 
their  home  societies  to  enable  them  to  comply  with  the  condi¬ 
tions.  The  evident  aim  of  the  government  is  not  to  aid  mush¬ 
room  or  parasitic  growths,  but  only  those  schools  which  are 
founded  upon  a  healthy  local  demand,  and  which  are  sure  of 
the  fosterins:  care  of  local  communities  and  friends.  When 
aided  schools  are  brought  into  competition  with  schools  of  the 


now  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


167 


government,  the  competition  is  honorable,  so  far  as  my  obser¬ 
vation  goes.  The  rates  of  tuition  charged  by  the  government 
are  invariably  higher  than  the  rates  in  mission-schools,  so  that 
pupils  are  never  tempted  to  leave  the  latter  from  economical 
considerations,  unless  it  be  in  the  hope  of  securing  valuable 
scholarships. 

HOW  WE  DO  IT. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Missionary  Union  or  the  Woman’s 
Missionary  Societies  have  ever  required  local  contributions  at 
least  equal  to  the  amount  of  aid  sought,  or  local  guaranties  for 
the  permanence  of  the  school,  the  author  is  ignorant  of  the 
fact.  A  mere  statement  from  a  missionary  or  missionaries,  that 
a  school  is  “needed,”  with  the  intimation,  that,  if  one  is  not 
established,  prospective  pupils  will  be  lured  away  by  Roman- 
Catholic,  Church-of-England,  or  government  schools,  has  suf¬ 
ficed,  in  some  instances  at  least,  to  secure  the  services  of 
teachers  from  this  country,  and  liberal  and  regular  appropria¬ 
tions  of  money.  The  reports  furnished  in  return  have  often  been 
meagre,  the  average  daily  attendance  even  not  being  usually 
given  ;  the  amounts  received  from  fees,  from  native  Christians 
and  other  local  sources,  not  being  usually  stated.  It  is  for  the 
interest  of  all  aided  schools  to  make  as  good  a  show  as  they  can 
of  their  income  from  private  sources  ;  and  it  was  a  striking  fact, 
a  few  years  ago,  that  the  Roman-Catholic  and  Church-of-Eng¬ 
land  schools,  whose  influence  was  so  much  feared  and  depre¬ 
cated,  were  actually  receiving  far  less  aid  from  their  respective 
friends  in  Christian  lands,  according  to  the  official  returns  to 
government,  than  were  our  own  American  Baptist  mission- 
schools.  They  were  depending  far  more  upon  local  support 
than  were  we.1  As  our  schools  have  been  receiving  larger  and 

1  See  Missionary  Magazine,  January,  1880,  pp.  6-12,  especially  p.  8,  bot¬ 
tom.  The  article  “  Education  in  British  Burma  ”  cost  the  writer  consider¬ 
able  labor;  and  he  regards  its  statements  and  conclusions  as  reliable, 
and  worthy  of  the  consideration  of  those  interested  in  mission  schools. 
It  shows  that  seven  of  the  principal  Roman-Catholic  and  S.  P.  G.  schools 
in  Burma  were  receiving  less  than  one-sixth  of  their  expenses  from  their 
home  patrons. 


1G8  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


larger  appropriations  from  home,  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  official  tables  would  show  a  result  less  unfavorable  to 
us  now,  if  they  were  at  hand  for  our  inspection. 

For  the  information  of  secretaries,  boards,  and  churches  at 
home,  we  would  venture  to  suggest  that  missionaries  in  charge 
of  schools  aided  both  by  the  mission  and  the  government  be 
required  to  send  to  the  Rooms  in  Boston,  promptly,  copies  of 
all  the  reports  and  returns  furnished  by  them  to  the  govern¬ 
ment  ;  and  that  the  mission  treasurers  in  provinces  where  we 
are  carrying  on  mission-schools — i.e.,  in  Rangoon,  Madras,  and 
Assam  —  be  requested  to  procure,  and  forward  to  the  Rooms, 
copies  of  the  annual  reports  of  the  “  Directors  of  Public  In¬ 
struction.”  These,  supplemented  with  the  information  now 
given  as  to  the  religious  condition  and  progress  of  the  schools, 
will  supply  data  much  needed  for  an  intelligent  judgment  as  to 
their  general  conduct  and  efficiency.  The  society  in  America 
is  the  principal  supporter  of  most  of  these  schools,  and  it  has  a 
plain  right  to  require  at  least  as  much  attention  from  its  own 
missionaries  as  the  British  government  requires. 

A  FEW  MORE  STATISTICS. 

Some  good  people  disparage  statistics  ;  but  there  is  evidence 
that  our  God  not  only  conducts  the  great  operations  of  nature 
on  strict  mathematical  principles,  but  that  in  his  dealings  with 
men  he  is  equally  exact  and  exactly  exacting.  How  did  he  settle 
with  the  children  of  Israel,  on  a  certain  occasion?  In  considera¬ 
tion  of  the  mercy  shown  to  the  first-born  of  Israel  on  that  night 
of  wailing  in  Egypt,  they  were  to  belong  to  Jehovah  in  a  peculiar 
sense.  But  it  pleased  him  to  exchange  the  first-born  males  of 
all  the  tribes,  for  the  one  tribe  of  Levi.  When  at  last  the 
change  was  effected,  could  any  thing  be  more  exact?  (Num.  iii. 
39-51.)  By  specific  command,  the  first-born  males  of  Israel 
from  one  month  old  and  upwards  were  numbered,  and  found  to 
be  22,273.  All  the  males  of  the  Levites  from  one  month  old 
and  upwards  were  found  to  be  an  even  22,000.  For  the  excess 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


1G9 


of  273  souls,  a  ransom  of  five  shekels  each  was  exacted  and 
paid,  1,365  shekels,  not  into  the  treasury  of  the  Lord,  but  to 
Aaron  and  his  sons,  it  would  seem,  in  consideration  of  the 
extra  service  which  fell  upon  them,  owing  to  the  small  deficiency 
in  their  numbers. 

Our  Saviour  said  in  the  parable,  “After  a  long  time  the 
lord  of  those  servants  cometh,  and  recJconeth  with  them.”  It 
may  not  be  quite  prudent  for  us  modern  Christians  to  despise 
the  lessons  which  careful  book-keeping  and  honest  statistical 
tables  teach. 

Let  us  take  up,  more  carefully  than  we  have  done  hitherto, 
the  history  of  a  few  specimen  schools  which  have  been  under  the 
support  of  American  Baptists  for  a  series  of  years.  As  the  Ka- 
ren  schools,  all  of  them,  are  for  the  children  of  Christians,  and 
self-supporting  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  they  are  entitled, 
according  to  the  principles  of  these  tracts,  to  some  measure  of 
assistance.  We  will,  therefore,  pass  them  by.  In  the  schools 
considered,  we  will  endeavor  to  arrive  as  closely  as  we  can  at 
their  cost  to  the  Christians  of  this  country,  including  the  outfits, 
passages,  and  salaries  of  their  American  teachers,  the  sums 
appropriated  for  school-compounds,  buildings,  furniture,  etc., 
and  for  the  current  expenses  of  the  schools,  including  the  sup¬ 
port  of  pupils  and  native  teachers.  If  the  reports  show  any 
contributions  from  natives  for  school-buildings  or  current  ex¬ 
penses,  we  shall  take  pleasure  in  calling  attention  to  the  fact. 
We  will  also  take  into  account  the  size  of  the  Christian  com¬ 
munities  for  the  benefit  of  which,  primarily,  the  schools  were 
established  ;  and  also  the  visible  fruits  in  conversions  and  bap¬ 
tisms,  about  which  American  Christians  chiefly  care. 

(1)  THE  BURMAN  GIRLS’  SCHOOL  IN  MAULMAIN. 

This  excellent  school  was  begun  by  Miss  S.  E.  II as  well  in 
1867,  apparently  without  any  official  authorization  from  America. 
For  the  first  four  or  five  years,  the  Missionary  Union  was  charge¬ 
able  only  with  her  personal  salary  and  allowances.  The  school 


170  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


found  a  home  in  a  vacant  building  belonging  to  the  mission. 
The  other  expenses  were  met  by  the  Burma  Baptist  Convention 
and  local  friends.  During  her  visit  to  this  country  in  1871, 
Miss  Haswell  raised  several  thousand  dollars  among  the  friends 
of  missions,  for  the  erection  of  a  substantial  and  elegant  build¬ 
ing,  and  the  newly  formed  Woman’s  Baptist  Foreign  Missionary 
Society  assumed  the  support  of  the  school  and  of  Miss  Haswell 
herself.  Other  teachers  have  been  sent  forward  from  time  to 
time.  Miss  Sheldon,  who  has  been  in  charge  for  some  years,  is 
doing  what  she  can,  under  obvious  difficulties,  to  induce  the 
pupils  and  their  parents  to  relieve  the  mission  in  part  from  the 
cost  of  clothing,  books,  etc.,  formerly  given  gratuitously.  A 
careful  study  of  the  annual  reports  gives  us  the  following  as  the 
approximate  cost  of  this  school  to  Christians  in  this  country 
from  1872  to  1885,  inclusive:  — 


Cost  of  buildings  ..... 
Furniture,  pupils,  native  teachers,  etc. 

Outfit,  passage,  salary  of  American  teachers 


$8,982  14 
15,865  06 
18,581  99 


Total 


$43,429  19 


Pupils  leaving  school  before  the  time  agreed  upon  have  paid 
something  by  way  of  forfeit ;  something  has  doubtless  been 
received  for  tuition,  etc.,  but  the  amounts  are  not  given.1  The 
school  being  situated  on  the  mission  premises,  nothing  was  paid 
out  for  land.  Mrs.  J.  M.  Haswell  was  nominally  connected 
with  the  school  for  several  years,  but  her  support  is  not 
included. 

As  to  the  spiritual  results,  so  far  as  such  results  can  be  ex¬ 
pressed  in  numbers,  we  find  that  during  this  period  of  fourteen 

1  In  1877  Rev.  J.  R.  Haswell  reported  that  in  seven  years  (1869-1876) 
over  $5,000  had  been  paid  by  the  natives  for  the  support  of  the  gospel  and 
the  several  mission  schools  in  Maulmain.  As  he  gives  the  amount  re¬ 
ceived  for  school-fees  that  year  as  over  Rs.  2,000,  it  is  probable  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  $5,000  came  from  that  source.  The  Burman  boys’  school 
is  largely  dependent  on  that  source  of  income,  and  receives  much  more  for 
tuition  than  the  girls’  school. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


171 


years,  fifty-seven  of  the  pupils  were  baptized.  About  one-third 
of  them  were  brought  in  under  the  labors  of  an  earnest  mis¬ 
sionary  of  the  China  Inland  Mission,  who  spent  some  months  in 
Maulmain  in  1875. 

(2)  EURASIAN  GIRLS’  SCHOOL. 

In  reckoning  what  American  Christians  are  doing  for  the 
Christian  education  of  the  Burmese  in  Maulmain,  the  Eurasian 
Home  should  not  be  forgotten.  This  institution  also  owes  its 
origin  to  Miss  Haswell’s  pious  zeal.  It  was  begun,  apparently 
without  authority  from  this  country,  in  1873.  The  unfortunate 
class  for  whose  benefit  it  is  designed  are  mostly  the  offspring 
of  Burman  mothers  by  European  fathers.  The  lady  in  charge 
reported  in  1876,  that  out  of  sixty-five  pupils  only  five  were  of 
legitimate  birth.  Common  justice  would  seem  to  require,  that 
while  our  hands  are  so  full  of  work  for  the  natives,  British 
Christians  should  care  for  these,  their  own  poor  children.  In 
1877  Mrs.  Longley  presented  the  cause  in  England  so  persua¬ 
sively  that  about  five  thousand  dollars  were  given  to  her  for  the 
purchase  of  the  house  and  grounds  which  are  now  occupied  by 
the  Home.  This  sum  is  not  included  below.  As  nearly  as 
we  can  ascertain,  the  following  amounts  have  been  forwarded 
through  the  treasury  of  the  Missionary  Union,  for  this  school, 
up  to  April,  1885  :  — 

For  current  expenses  of  the  school  .  .  .  $8,855  64 

Outfit,  passage,  and  salary  of  American  teachers,  9,954  14 

Total . $18,809  78 

During  the  same  period  twenty-three  of  the  pupils  were  bap¬ 
tized.  This  makes  a  total  of  $62,238.97,  expended  by  us 
within  the  last  fourteen  years  for  the  education  of  girls  in  Maul¬ 
main,  not  including  Karens.  The  adult  Christian  community 
for  which  this  provision  was  made  numbers  less  than  three 
hundred  souls. 


172  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


(3)  BURMAN  GIRLS’  SCHOOL,  RANGOON. 

This  school,  begun  by  Miss  Gage  in  1873,  has  outgrown  its 
older  sister,  in  Maulmain.  Early  in  its  history,  it  received  from 
the  late  Rev.  C.  Bennett  the  gift  of  a  large  and  convenient 
school-building,  which  is  said  to  have  cost  the  donor  about  Rs. 
10,000.  This  sum  did  not  pass  through  the  mission  treasury,  and 
is  not  included  in  the  statement  below.  The  school  has  a  fine 
location,  is  well  equipped  with  buildings  and  furniture,  is  ably 
conducted  ;  and  so  long  as  government  continues  to  give  double 
the  grant  for  girls  which  it  gives  for  boys  of  a  similar  grade,  it 
should  not  be  difficult  to  put  this  school  on  a  self-supporting 
basis,  leaving  the  mission  chargeable  only  with  the  salaries, 
etc.,  of  the  American  teachers.  Up  to  the  present  year,  it  has 
cost  American  Christians  as  follows  :  — 


For  compound,  buildings,  and  fence  . 
current  expenses  of  the  school  . 
salary,  outfit,  and  passage  of  American  teachers 


.  $14,207  32 
.  12,370  61 

.  23,594  55 


Total . $50,172  48 

Seventy  pupils  were  baptized  during  the  thirteen  years  under 
review.  Large  grants  in  aid  have  been  received  from  govern¬ 
ment,  besides  something  for  fees  and  forfeit  money ;  but  the 
totals  are  not  published.  As  to  the  amount  received  as  dona¬ 
tions  from  the  natives,  Miss  Gage,  reviewing  the  history  of  the 
school  in  1878,  gives  a  list  of  presents  and  collections  amount¬ 
ing  to  thirty  rupees,  besides  minor  gifts  of  fowls,  eggs,  fruit, 
rice,  etc. 


(4)  BURMESE  AND  SHAN  GIRLS’  SCHOOL,  TOUNGOO. 

It  is  not  strange  that  every  missionary  wants  the  most  and 
the  best  that  he  can  get  for  the  people  to  whom  he  has  devoted 
his  life.  The  origin  of  this  school  is  so  like  that  of  many 
others,  that  we  quote  from  the  letter  which  urged  its  adoption 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


173 


by  the  Woman’s  Society :  “  This  school  seems  a  very  important 
enterprise  ;  and  I  confidently  hope  it  will  result  in  good,  and 
that  your  Board  will  approve  it.  In  view  of  the  importance 
of  starting  the  school  at  once,  I  have  engaged  a  teacher,  and 
hope  I  may  rely  upon  your  society  for  her  salary  and  some 
other  necessary  expenses  of  the  school.  The  pupils  are  such 
nice,  bright  girls,  that  I  cannot  give  them  up.” 

Being  successful  in  this  first  appeal,  the  pressure  was  con¬ 
tinued  until  the  official  indorsement  of  the  secretaries  was 
obtained:  “The  need  of  a  schoolhouse  is  as  imperative  as 
ever.”  “A  girls’  school  is  much  needed  here.”  “The  lady 
is  greatly  needed.”  Since  1880  a  compound  and  buildings  have 
been  purchased,  and  four  ladies  have  been  sent  out  to  the 
work.  The  aggregate  expenditure  is  as  follows,  from  1875  to 
1885  :  — 

For  compound,  buildings,  and  repairs  ....  $5,125  65 
current  expenses  of  the  school  .....  5,046  03 

salary,  outfit,  and  passage  of  American  teachers  .  7,123  88 


Total  . 


.  $17,295  56 


The  number  of  baptisms  reported  is  seven.  Much  faithful 
work  has  been  done  ;  but  when  we  consider  the  little  fruit  that 
has  been  reaped,  and  the  fact  that  there  are  belt  a  handful 
of  Burman  and  Shan  Christians  in  Toungoo  (forty-seven),  the 
costliness  of  the  provision  made  for  the  education  of  their 
daughters  is  apparent.  Nor  is  it  less  important  to  note  that 
the  unwisdom  of  endeavoring  to  compel  hostile  or  antipathetic 
races  to  live  together  under  one  roof  for  the  purposes  of  edu¬ 
cation  finds  fresh  illustration  in  this  school. 


(5)  EURASIAN  GIRLS’  SCHOOL,  TOUNGOO. 

After  repeated  and  increasingly  urgent  appeals  from  a  worthy 
missionary  on  the  ground,  the  Woman’s  Society  in  Boston  was 
constrained  to  take  up  this  enterprise.  The  school  had  but  a 


174  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 

brief  life.  After  four  years  of  faithful  labor  by  the  Christian 
lady  who  was  sent  out  to  do  the  work,  and  after  the  expendi¬ 
ture  of  nearly  five  thousand  dollars,  it  was  ascertained  that  the 
Eurasian  population  in  the  vicinity  of  Toungoo  was  much  smaller 
than  had  been  supposed.  Of  the  six  girls  remaining  in  the 
school,  at  last,  two  ran  away  ;  a  third  was  kept  at  home  by  her 
mother ;  three  joined  the  Burmese  Girls’  School ;  and  Miss 
Lawrence  herself  was  transferred  to  the  Karen  department. 
Such  costly  mistakes  would  be  prevented  by  the  adoption  of  the 
precautions  always  practised  by  the  British  government  in 
Burma.  The  expenditure  from  the  mission  treasury  was  as 
follows :  — 

For  current  expenses  of  the  school  .....  $1,796  80 
salary,  outfit,  and  passage  of  American  teacher  .  .  3,0S9  16 

Total  o  .......  $1,885  96 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  continue  the  investigation  to  any 
required  extent,  but  this  may  suffice  for  the  present.  Five 
schools  for  girls  have  been  considered,  upon  which  American 
Baptist  women  have  expended  an  aggregate  of  $134,592.97,  all 
within  the  last  fourteen  years.  If  we  treat  the  schools  as  a 
provision  for  the  educational  wants  of  the  Christian  families 
which  have  grown  up  under  our  ministrations,  the  want  has 
been  met  at  a  cost  (for  girls  only)  of  $197  per  member,  or,  say, 
$500  for  each  family  ;  for  the  whole  number  of  Baptists  on  the 
fields  occupied  by  these  schools  is  exactly  683,  the  number  of 
families  not  over  two  or  three  hundred.  If,  however,  we  regard 
the  schools  as  an  evangelizing  agency,  we  can  count  up  but  158 
baptisms,  some  of  which  certainly  should  be  credited  to  the 
preaching  of  male  missionaries  of  the  Missionary  Union.  At 
the  rate  of  $850  or  $1,000  per  convert,  the  conversion  of  the 
world  by  means  of  schools  promises  to  be  a  pretty  expensive 
operation,  vastly  more  so  than  by  the  old-fashioned  scriptural 

method.  In  this  calculation  we  have  made  no  account  of  the 

% 

precious  lives  which  have  been  sacrificed,  nor  of  the  years  of 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


175 


valuable  time  which  have  necessarily  been  given  to  these  same 
enterprises  by  the  missionaries,  male  and  female,  of  the  parent 
society. 

The  instruction  given  in  these  schools  is  of  the  best.  The 
Bible  occupies  a  more  prominent  place  in  them  all  than  it  does 
in  Baptist  academies  in  this  country.  The  work  is  a  good 
work, — no  doubt  of  that.  The  question  is,  whether  this  form 
of  Christian  labor  brings  the  largest  possible  returns  for  our 
Lord’s  money,  our  Lord’s  talents,  our  Lord’s  time. 

This,  too,  should  be  considered.  These  girls  live  in  a 
heathen  land,  surrounded  by  peculiar  temptations  and  few  safe¬ 
guards.  The  attractiveness,  the  money  value,  of  every  one  of 
them,  is  greatly  enhanced  by  the  habits  of  neatness,  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  English,  the  skill  in  needle-work,  in  singing,  and  other 
accomplishments,  which  they  acquire  in  these  schools.  The 
design  of  the  teachers  and  patrons  is  to  train  their  pupils  for 
holy  and  useful  lives,  but  with  the  best  endeavors  some  will  go 
astray.  In  1880  a  missionary  lady  told  me  that  three  or  four 
out  of  five  young  women,  who  had  recently  returned  to  her 
station  after  a  term  of  study  in  one  of  the  oldest  and  most 
successful  of  these  schools  for  Burman  girls,  had  shortly  be¬ 
come  the  mistresses  of  men  of  foreign  or  alien  birth.  In  a 
jungle-tour  I  once  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  young  English 
officer.  He  spent  the  Sunday  near  by,  and  joined  us  at  morn¬ 
ing  and  evening  worship.  He  told  me  that  he  had  lately  broken 
off  an  immoral  connection  with  a  young  Burman  woman.  He 
spoke  warmly  of  her  domestic  virtues,  and  showed  me  one  of 
his  garments,  neatly  embroidered  by  her  hand,  with  his  initials 
in  English.  Directly  or  indirectly  she  undoubtedly  gained  this 
and  other  accomplishments  from  one  of  our  mission-schools.1 
There  are  drawbacks,  of  course,  to  all,  even  the  most  wisely 
conducted,  benevolent  enterprises  ;  but  we  submit  that  it  is  a 
fair  question,  whether  American  Christians  are  called  upon  to 


1  In  her  sketch  of  the  Nellore  Girls’  School  (“  Helping  Hand,”  February, 
18S0),  Mrs.  Downie,  with  commendable  frankness,  mentions  the  fact  that 
three  of  her  girls  had  “  fallen  into  sin,”  and  been  excluded. 


176  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


undertake  this  class  of  schools  before  the  people  are  ready  to 
meet  a  considerable  part  of  the  cost  themselves. 

“HE  THAT  TEACHETH,  TO  HIS  TEACHING.” 

It  is  claimed  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  time  and 
strength  of  the  teaching  women  in  our  missions  should  be  cred¬ 
ited  to  “  gospel  work.’ ’  We  have  had  iu  our  own  family  not 
less  than  eight  of  the  missionaries  sent  out  by  the  Woman’s 
Societies  to  assist  in  the  school  work  of  Bassein.  More  excel¬ 
lent  or  more  efficient  ladies  than  they  were,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find.  Their  full  strength,  and  not  infrequently  large  drafts 
from  their  reserve  energies,  were  given  to  teaching  and  superin¬ 
tending  the  different  departments  of  educational  and  industrial 
work.  They  felt,  as  I  did,  that  Scripture  instruction  in  the 
vernacular  could  better  be  given  by  the  senior  missionaries,  or 
by  native  teachers  who  had  spent  several  years  in  systematic 
Bible  study  in  Bassein  and  Rangoon.  Aside  from  their  Sunday- 
school  classes,  I  do  not  remember  that  one  of  these  ladies  ever 
gave  regular  biblical  or  religious  instruction  in  connection  with 
her  school  duties.  At  the  end  of  the  school  year,  after  eight 
or  nine  months  of  grinding  work  in  that  climate,  the  hottest 
season  was  upon  us.  The  devoted  ladies  sorely  needed  rest 
and  a  change,  and  they  were  generally  wise  enough  to  take  it. 
In  a  few  instances  they  went  to  the  jungle  villages  ;  but  it  was 
for  the  study  of  the  language  and  habits  of  the  people  in  their 
own  homes,  rather  than  for  religious  labor,  that  they  generally 
went.  No,  good  and  wise  sisters  of  the  Boards,  when  your  mis¬ 
sionaries  teach  in  the  dry  season  as  well  as  in  the  rains,  it  is  too 
much  to  expect  any  appreciable  amount  of  evangelistic  service 
from  them.  For  that  work  you  must  have  women  specially 
called,  specially  trained,  and  specially  designated  and  directed. 
Excellent  teachers  you  have  found  ready  to  your  hand.  In 
self-supporting  schools  the}?  still  can  find  much  work  worth  the 
doing  ;  but  for  the  ministry  of  the  Word,  you  must  look  further, 
with  constant  prayer  to  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  that  he  will 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


177 


raise  up  and  qualify  the  choicest  of  women  for  this  crowning 
work  in  behalf  of  womanhood  and  childhood  perishing  in  hea¬ 
thenish  darkness.  The  “training-school”  which  has  been 
begun  in  Chicago  proposes  to  do  a  most  important  work,  and 
no  pains  or  expense  should  be  spared  to  make  it  adequate  for 
that  work. 


TELUGU  SCHOOLS. 

The  most  expensive  boys’ 4  school  in  connection  with  our 
missions  (always  excepting  the  “  college  ”  in  Rangoon),  and  at 
the  same  time  the  one  which  has  received  the  least  from  local 
and  native  sources,  is  that  which  is  now  called  the  “  High 
School”  at  Ongole,  together  with  its  preparatory  depart¬ 
ment,  or  “Boys’  School.”  An  approximate  estimate  only 
is  possible  from  the  printed  reports.  From  these  it  appears 
that  not  less  than  $50,000  have  been  expended  upon  it  since 
1876,  including  the  salaries,  etc.,  of  American  teachers,  and 
$5,000  of  the  money  in  hand  for  a  new  edifice.  The  lady  in 
charge  of  the  preparatory  boys’  school  reports  the  average  daily 
attendance  for  last  year  to  be  T27.  “Of  these,  ninety-one  are 
boarding  boys,  whose  parents  are  poor  and  unable  to  keep  them 
in  school.  They  are  the  sons  of  preachers  or  teachers,  or  have 
been  selected  .  .  .  from  the  best  boys  attending  the  village 
schools.  .  .  .  They  receive  food,  clothes,  and  books  from  the 
mission.”  Dr.  Clough  says,  moreover  (“Magazine,”  Decem¬ 
ber,  1885,  p.  458),  that  most  of  the  high-school  boys  are  sons 
or  younger  brothers  of  the  pastors,  evangelists,  and  village 
teachers,  and  that  therefore  they  are  unable  to  pay  tuition,  or 
to  provide  for  their  board  and  clothes.  Accordingly  the  mission 
paid  the  tuition  of  the  Christian  boys  (to  meet  a  rule  of  the 
government),  while  the  heathen  pupils  “flaxed  about”  and  paid 
the  tuition  demand  themselves.  It  seems  to  be  assumed,  that, 
because  a  boy  is  the  son  or  brother  of  a  preacher,  he  is  unable 
to  do  any  thing  to  support  himself  ;  when  there  is  some  reason 
to  believe  that  the  preachers  are  even  better  off,  so  far  as  this 


178  SELF-SUrrORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


world’s  goods  go,  than  the  majority  of  their  own  caste.  If  they 
are  excused,  all  Christians  must  be  excused. 

This  clearly  is  an  excellent  way  to  escape  self-supporting 
schools  in  Ongole.  From  the  outset,  tuition  seems  to  have  been 
free  to  everybody  ;  while  to  the  children  of  Christians,  at  least, 
board,  books,  and  clothing  have  been  given  without  price.  The 
British  government,  believing  and  practising  the  opposite  policy, 
directs  Mr.  Manley  to  require  tuition  at  certain  fixed  rates  from 
all  his  pupils.  He  proceeds  to  collect  it  from  all  non-Christians, 
the  school  gaining  Rs.  1,110  by  the  operation  ;  while  good,  gen¬ 
erous  Dr.  Clough  steps  in,  and  pays  Rs.  835  in  a  lump  sum  for 
all  the  Christians.  This,  of  course,  is  no  immediate  loss  to  the 
mission,  for  the  mission  holds  itself  responsible  for  the  support 
of  the  school,  and  the  school  finances  are  improved  to  just  the 
same  extent ;  but  the  precedent  thus  established  clearly  places  a 
premium  upon  the  profession  of  Christianity,  while  it  postpones 
to  the  dim  future  all  hope  of  pecuniary  assistance  from  the 
Christian  community.  But  are  all  the  Telugu  preachers  so 
poor  as  to  preclude  their  paying,  partially  even,  for  the  clothes, 
the  books,  or  the  board  of  their  children  ? 1 

The  Rev.  A.  Kanakiah  of  Nellore  sends  two  boys  to  the 
Ongole  school.  As  a  common  laborer,  he,  though  a  Sudra, 

1  In  addition  to  the  appropriations  made  directly  to  Messrs.  Boggs,  Man- 
ley,  Miss  Ranschenbush,  and  others,  for  the  work  in  Ongole,  the  appropria¬ 
tions  in  Dr.  Clough’s  name  alone  aggregate  $91,728  59  for  the  seven  years 
3879-1885  inclusive.  Deducting  his  salary,  “  special  grants,”  and  passage 
expenses,  $78,945.03  remain  for  the  work.  We  have  already  alluded  to  the 
fact  that  common  laborers  in  Ongole  are  content  with  less  than  one-twen¬ 
tieth  of  the  wages  which  the  corresponding  class  receive  in  this  country. 
It  follows  that  the  expenditure  of  $11,278  per  year  by  a  single  man  on  that 
field  is  quite  comparable  to  the  expenditure  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  a  year 
in  this  country.  How  would  it  work  in  Indiana,  for  example,  to  import 
an  exceptionally  able  doctor  of  divinity  from  England,  on  a  heavy  salary, 
and  to  put  him  in  charge  of  the  State  missions,  with  $250,000  of  foreign 
funds  for  distribution  year  by  year?  Alas  for  poor  human  nature  sub¬ 
jected  to  such  a  strain!  We  observe  that  the  division  of  the  original 
Ongole  field  into  five,  and  generous  appropriations  to  the  four  new 
stations,  have  not  thus  far  resulted  in  any  diminution  of  the  demands  of 
the  mother  station. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED . 


179 


must  have  been  content  to  work  for  four  or  six  rupees  a  month ; 
but  he  is  educated  at  mission  expense,  as  well  as  his  excellent 
wife,  the  well-known  “Julia.”  He  is  then  taken  into  mission 
employ.  They  live  in  a  nice  brick  house  on  the  mission  com¬ 
pound.  He  receives  a  salary  of  thirty  rupees  a  month,  with  five 
rupees  more  for  Julia.  Could  they  pay  no  tuition?  Their  boys 
come  to  Ongole,  and  are  received  gratuitously  like  all  the  rest. 
They  are  put  upon  a  plain  but  wholesome  diet,  the  same  as  the 
other  boys,  but  are  not  satisfied.  Their  parents  secretly  send  to 
them  money,  rice,  bottles  of  imported  pickles,  preserves,  etc., 
from  Europe.  They  run  off  to  the  bazaar  to  buy  sweetmeats,  slip 
off  behind  the  hedge  to  cook  a  mutton-curry,  and  feast  upon  it. 
The  teacher  writes  to  Nellore,  protesting  against  the  practice. 
The  missionary  brother  there  labors  with  the  parents,  but  unsuc¬ 
cessfully.  They  keep  it  up.  The  teacher  writes  again  that  it 
must  stop.  Kanakiah  then  orders  his  boys  home,  places  them 
in  the  Free-Church  Anglo-vernacular  school  at  high  tuition,  and 
boards  them  at  home.  I  understand  that  one  or  two  of  his 
sons  are  now  supported  gratuitously  in  the  Ramapatam  Semi¬ 
nary.  Space  forbids  an  examination  of  the  expensive  girls’ 
schools  at  Ongole  and  Nellore,  and  the  expensive  system  of 
schools  which  is  being  inaugurated  at  the  four  new  Telugu 
stations. 


IS  IT  A  LOW  FORM  OF  INFANTILE,  OR  PRE-NATAL,  LIFE? 

What  should  be  said  of  a  system  of  benevolence,  so  called, 
which  expends  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  upon  the  edu¬ 
cation  of  people  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  who  do  not 
contribute,  and  apparently  are  not  expected  to  contribute,  a 
rupee  or  a  copper  in  the  way  of  self-help?  What  should  be 
said  of  the  continuance  of  such  a  system  in  ever-increasing 
ratios,  decade  after  decade,  for  forty,  fifty,  or  sixty  years? 
What  could  justly  be  said  of  the  blindness  of  the  men  who 
manage  the  business,  and  seek  to  fasten  the  system,  a  perpetual 
clog  and  shame,  upon  the  churches  of  a  land  whose  boast  is  her 
freedom  alike  from  the  craft  of  priest  and  king,  whose  glory  is 


180  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


the  astonishing  vitality  and  growth  of  ecclesiastical  and  benev¬ 
olent  institutions  under  the  voluntary  system?  As  to  the  order 
of  life  which  pertains  to  the  chief  sufferers  by  this  unscriptural 
system,  it  cannot  be  called  infantile  life.  If  life  there  be,  it 
is  an  unnatural,  foetal  life.  The  great  majority  of  so-called 
churches  in  heathen  lands  have  never  been  born.  Wrapped  in 
the  uterus  of  the  Missionary  Union  and  kindred  societies,  their 
sustenance  is  pumped  into  them,  already  digested  and  assimi¬ 
lated.  We  submit  that  it  is  high  time  for  Baptists,  at  least,  to 
see  to  it  that  their  children  are  brought  forth  into  the  cold  world, 
forcibly  if  need  be  ;  to  tie  the  umbilical  cord  at  once,  and  cut  it, 
if  the  lives  of  mother  and  child  are  to  be  saved. 

The  Karen  mission,  thank  Heaven,  never  passed  through  the 
foetal  stage.  It  was  born  a  lusty  child,  May  16,  1838,  the  very 
day  on  which  Ko  Tliahbyu,  the  “Karen  apostle”  and  first 
convert,  was  baptized.  The  Karen  churches  alone  in  all  our 
missions  are  beginning  to  enter  upon  the  second  stage  of  devel¬ 
opment.  Most  of  them  have  nursed  their  mother  too  hard  and 
too  long,  but  nursing  with  the  mouth  is  a  healthier  process  than 
the  other.  Already  they  begin  to  chew,  and  will  shortly  grub 
their  own  living  entirely.  There  is  an  organic  life  in  the  Karen 
churches  which  is  most  hopeful.  They  have  the  sense  of  per¬ 
sonality.  They  adhere  together.  They  organize  easily  into 
churches  and  associations.  They  give  of  their  scanty  substance, 
and  their  substance  increases.  They  go  out  after  the  heathen 
far  and  near.  They  obey  the  great  law  of  spiritual  life  and 
growth,  “Thou  slialt  give,  thou  shalt  work  for  the  Lord  who 
hath  bought  thee.”  The  Sgaus  of  Bassein  have  the  right  of  the 
line,  indisputably,  and  they  are  well  to  the  front.  In  choosing 
locations  and  in  laying  foundations,  their  aid  must  be  invoked, 
their  wishes  and  their  claims  must  be  considered.  As  we  have 
blundered  and  failed  for  the  most  part  in  securing  self-support¬ 
ing  schools  of  the  lower  order,  it  may  be  found  that  we  have 
made  no  less  serious  mistakes  in  the  establishment  of  general 
schools  of  a  higher  grade  for  the  Karens,  who  are  alone  ready 
for  them.  Let  us  see. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


181 


GENERAL  SCHOOLS  FOR  THE  KARENS. 

If  self-supporting  schools  are  an  end  to  be  aimed  at,  and  not 
a  danger  to  be  escaped,  the  utmost  care  and  wisdom  are  to  be 
used  in  selecting  their  location.  A  school  for  the  training  of 
preachers  is  one  of  the  earliest  necessities  in  a  mission  which  is 
blessed  of  the  Lord.  In  the  outset,  it  may  be  wise  for  the  mis¬ 
sion  to  meet  most  of  the  current  expenses,  and  it  may  be  best 
to  establish  it,  provisionally,  at  the  point  which  is  most  con¬ 
venient  for  the  missionaries  ;  but  as  results  appear,  and  the  time 
approaches  when  the  converts  may  be  expected  to  assume  its 
support,  the  question  of  a  permanent  location  comes  up  for  set¬ 
tlement.  Where  are  the  converts  most  numerous?  Where  have 
they  manifested  the  most  enterprise,  the  most  zeal  for  education 
and  evangelization  ?  Where  are  they  accustomed  to  devise  the 
most  liberal  things  ?  Where  is  a  general  school  most  strongly 
desired,  and  where  will  the  people  do  the  most  for  it  in  the  way 
of  support,  as  well  as  in  furnishing  pupils  of  promise?  To 
ignore  these  considerations,  as  has  been  done  in  one  or  more 
of  our  missions,  is  simply  fatuous.  These  are  the  grounds  on 
which  the  location  of  an  institution  is  generally  settled  in  this 
country,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  location  of  schools  for 
the  benefit  of  converts  in  any  heathen  land  can  wisely  be 
determined  on  other  grounds.  In  Burma  at  least,  there  are 
no  wealthy  natives  to  put  an  institution  on  its  feet,  and  endow 
it  for  all  time  to  come  from  the  start.  “  Indigenous  schools,” 
when  they  come,  must  depend  on  the  poor,  and  therefore  on 
the  many,  for  support.  The  same  things  can  be  said  of  the 
more  secular  “college,”  when  at  a  later  period  it  becomes  a 
necessity. 

In  taking  up  for  reconsideration  this  subject  which  has  been 
so  hotly  discussed  for  many  years,  the  writer  wishes  to  have  his 
own  position  distinctly  understood.  If  he  ever  had  u  an  axe 
to  grind”  in  connection  with  institutions  for  the  Karens,  not 
the  ghost  of  an  axe  remains  to  him  now.  Although  the  Karens 
still  urge  his  return  to  Bassein,  he  has  decided  that  a  return 


182  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


to  the  climate  and  the  work  from  which  he  has  twice  suffered 
so  severely  is  not  wise,  lie  is  making  definite  arrangements  to 
spend  his  remaining  days  in  work  for  a  heathen  people  far 
to  the  north  of  Burma.  He  will  be  able,  therefore,  he  hopes, 
to  discuss  the  subject  quite  apart  from  personal  considerations, 
and  he  respectfully  asks  his  brethren  to  reconsider  the  subject 
in  that  light. 

ATe  hold  these  positions  to  be  impregnable :  — 

(1)  The  only  institutions  worth  rearing  in  any  land  are  of 
indigenous  growth ,  “  of  the  people  and  by  the  people ,”  no  less 
than  “  for  the  people .”  This  proposition  does  not  exclude  a 
modicum  of  aid  from  older  and  richer  communities  to  indi¬ 
genous  high  schools  and  seminaries  of  promise. 

(2)  The  only  ground  in  Burma  on  which  advanced  schools , 
devised  by  the  people  and  mainly  supported  by  them ,  have  been 
established ,  or  can  be  at  present  after  forty  years  and  more  of 
tentative  effort ,  is  in  Bassein,  among  the  Karen  Christians  of 
Abbott  and  Beecher’s  training.  For  proof  of  this  we  refer  to 
the  files  of  the  “  Missionary  Magazine”  since  1838,  and  to  the 
author’s  “History  of  the  Bassein  Karen  Mission.” 


A  RETROSPECT. 

Please  observe  that  the  project  of  establishing  the  general 
school,  or  schools,  for  the  training  of  Karen  ministers  and 
teachers,  at  Bassein,  is  not  of  Mr.  Carpenter’s  originating. 

In  1844,  at  the  meeting  of  the  Triennial  Convention  in  Phil¬ 
adelphia,  the  committee  on  Asiatic  Missions  reported  that  “  it 
is  worthy  of  serious  consideration  whether  the  school  for  Karens 
should  not  be  located  in  Arakan  [Bassein],  instead  of  Maul- 
main.  The  missions  in  the  former  need,  more  than  in  the  latter 
place,  the  encouragement  and  advantages  which  would  be  af¬ 
forded  by  the  contiguity  of  such  an  institution.”  After  dis¬ 
cussion  this  report  was  adopted  by  the  Convention  which  was 
so  soon  to  become  the  Missionary  Union.  Rev.  Dr.  Binney 
was  even  then  on  his  way  to  open  a  theological  school  in  Maul- 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


183 


main  ;  but  so  strong  was  the  feeling  in  favor  of  the  western 
location  that  a  strong  special  committee  on  u  the  expediency  of 
the  establishment  of  the  Karen  Theological  School  at  Maul- 
main  ”  reported  at  the  closing  session  u  that  they  had  not  been 
able  to  prepare  their  report.”  They  were  accordingly  dis¬ 
charged. 

Again,  in  November,  1856,  after  the  great  ingatherings  in 
Toungoo  and  Sliwaygyeen  had  well  begun,  Rev.  Dr.  Wade, 
then  president  of  the  Karen  Theological  Seminary  in  Maul- 
main,  wrote :  — 


“  It  seems  impracticable  to  keep  up  a  seminary  in  this  expensive  place, 
with  the  appropriations  you  make  to  it.  It  has  been  strongly  suggested 
to  our  minds,  as  Rangoon  is  not  open  to  us,  that  the  school  had  better 
be  removed  to  Bassein.  The  Bassein  native  brethren  urge  it,  and 
promise  help  in  feeding  and  clothing  the  pupils;  and  the  prospect  is  that 
a  large  school  there  would  cost  the  Union  less  than  a  small  one  here.” 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  that  Dr.  Wade  wrote  with  a  thorough 
personal  acquaintance  both  with  the  Tavoy  and  Maulmain  dis¬ 
tricts.  He  had  also  instructed  scores  of  young  men  from  all 
the  Karen  fields.  He  had  sent  out  company  after  company  to 
labor  in  those  fields,  and  by  correspondence  with  them  he  knew 
them  also  thoroughly.  A  month  later  he  wrote  again  :  — 


“We  cannot  continue  the  school  at  the  rate  of  expense  unavoidable 
in  Maulmain,  where  the  pupils  have  mostly  to  come  from  a  distance, 
where  the  prices  of  provisions  of  all  kinds  are  extraordinarily  high,  and 
where  the  native  churches  can  not  or  will  not  aid  with  a  single  basket  of 
paddy,  or  a  stick  of  fuel,  without  receiving  city  prices.  I  therefore  beg 
the  sanction  of  the  Executive  Committee,  if  my  health  allows  me  to  con¬ 
tinue  in  charge  of  the  school,  to  remove  it  at  once,  before  it  is  positively 
broken  up,  to  a  place  among  the  churches,  where  the  churches  want  it 
and  will  do  something  for  its  support.  [Italics  by  editor.]  .  .  .  We  have, 
therefore,  proposed  Bassein  as  the  most  eligible  place,  and  particularly 
because  the  churches  and  pastors  there,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  are  ex¬ 
ceedingly  anxious  that  I  remove  the  school  to  that  district,  and  pledge 
their  aid  in  its  support,  so  far  as  concerns  the  board  of  'the  pupils.” 


184  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


With  this  view  Hibbard  of  Maulmain  and  the  Bassein 
missionaries  fully  concurred.1  The  Henthada  mission  wrote: 
“  There  would  be  a  very  great  advantage  in  having  the  semi¬ 
nary  in  Bassein  at  present,  inasmuch  as  the  Christian  Karens 
are  able,  and  it  is  hoped  would  be  willing,  to  render  the  school 
material  aid.”  They  thought  it  “  desirable  and  best  for  the 
cause,  to  remove  the  seminary  to  Bassein  ;  ”  but  for  certain 
reasons,  all  but  one  of  which  sound  strangely  enough  after  the 
experience  and  the  changes  of  thirty  years,  they  were  of  opinion 
that  the  arrangement  should  be  temporary,  and  that  the  school 
ought  eventually  to  be  located  at  Henthada. 

The  Executive  Committee  decided  to  remove  the  school  to 
Henthada.  Dr.  Wade,  while  still  preferring  Bassein,  loyally 
expressed  his  willingness  to  go  thither  if  such  was  the  will  of 
the  Committee.  At  this  juncture,  however,  Dr.  Binney  decided 
to  return  to  the  work  of  Karen  theological  education.  Coming 
as  he  did  from  the  presidency  of  the  college  in  Washington, 
the  rising  capital  (Rangoon),  to  his  mind,  presented  superior 
advantages.  He  also  believed  that  by  giving  up  the  claim, 
which  the  Union  was  maintaining,  to  the  Karen  mission-com- 
pound  in  Kemendine,  he  could  make  peace,  and  at  the  same 
time  establish  among  the  Rangoon  Karens  the  work  to  which 
his  valuable  life  was  devoted.  He  had  never  entertained  the 
curious  notion  that  the  seminary  should  be  isolated  and  apart 
from  the  grounds  and  the  work  of  any  mission-station.  In 
Maulmain  the  seminary  had  done  its  work  side  by  side  with 
the  station-school;  and,  in  the  absence  of  the  missionary,  Dr. 
Binney  had  taken  temporary  charge  of  the  churches  and  the 
station- work.  In  removing  the  seminary  to  Rangoon,  his 
decided  preference  was  to  have  it  placed  on  the  Karen  com¬ 
pound,  with  the  Sgau  mission  on  one  side  and  the  Pwo  mission 
on  the  other ;  and  it  was  thus  placed  for  five  years.  At  the 
end  of  that  time,  finding  that  the  Sgau  Karens  and  their  mis¬ 
sionaries  would  not  sell  to  the  Union  for  the  use  of  the  semi- 

1  See  letter  of  Rev.  H.  L.  Van  Meter  to  Secretary  Peck,  on  file,  dated 
Jan.  7,  1857. 


now  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


185 


nary  less  than  one-fourth  of  the  land  which  he  had  persuaded 
the  Union  to  yield  up  to  them  without  price,  he  reluctantly  left 
the  Karen  compound,  and  the  school-buildings  which  he  had 
erected  at  considerable  expense,  and  removed  the  seminary  to  a 
new  compound  a  mile  away,  which  was  purchased  and  fitted  up 
with  buildings  during  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  and  immediately 
after,  when  exchange  was  almost  ruinously  high.  Naturally 
enough,  the  Rangoon  Sgau  Karens  for  a  long  time  found  it 
difficult  for  themselves  to  send  pupils,  or  to  feel  a  friendly 
interest  even,  in  an  institution  which  they  had  done  so  little  to 
help. 

Again,  eight  years  later,  when  the  “  college  ”  was  established 
on  a  compound  a  mile  distant  from  the  Pwo-Karen  compound 
where  it  had  been  agreed  to  build  (in  the  opinion  of  the  Pwo 
mission),  several  brethren  were  so  seriously  alienated  that  they 
could  neither  co-operate  with  the  college  enterprise,  nor  ask  the 
Divine  blessing  upon  it.  Under  all  the  circumstances,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  subject  of  removing  the  college  and  seminary 
to  Bassein  should  again  be  mooted.  Like  Banquo’s  ghost, 
it  would  not1 ‘down.”  Maulmain  had  had  its  trial  of  fifteen 
years,  and  had  been  found  wanting.  Rangoon  had  then  had 
its  trial  of  fifteen  years,  and  had  been  found  no  less  wanting. 
Why  should  not  the  great  circle  of  Bassein  churches,  which  had 
been  growing  from  the  first  in  love  for  Christian  education  and 
Christian  missions,  and  in  large-hearted,  regular  beneficence  of 
all  kinds,  have  their  turn  of  trial? 

A  MOTION  FOR  SELF-SUPPORT  UNSECONDED. 

Mr.  Carpenter,  recently  appointed  to  the  charge  of  the  infant 
college,  knew  Bassein,  its  advantages  and  capabilities,  better 
than  any  man  then  living.  He  also  thought  that  he  understood 
the  situation  in  Rangoon,  having  been  associated  with  Dr.  Bin- 
ney  in  educational  work  for  several  years.  To  his  deep  regret, 
however,  he  found  on  his  arrival  not  one  Karen  missionary,  ex¬ 
cepting  Dr.  Binney,  heartily  in  favor  of  the  college  on  the  exist- 


186  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


iiig  basis.  In  past  years  he  had  been  told  by  Dr.  Binney 
many  times,  that  not  one  of  the  station-missionaries  heartily 
co-operated  with  him  in  the  support  of  the  seminary.  He  had 
been  told  as  often  by  older  missionaries  like  Thomas,  Beecher, 
and  Van  Meter,  that  their  young  men  were  spoiled  by  Rangoon, 
and  that  they  could  not  conscientiously  send  men  thither.  He 
found  himself,  to  his  surprise,  a  Karen  missionary  cut  off  from 
intercourse  with  the  Karens,  with  a  mere  handful  of  primary 
pupils,  -and  no  apparent  source  of  supply  for  pupils,  or  for 
means  of  subsistence,  short  of  America.  Too  late  he  saw  the 
mistake  he  had  committed  in-  accepting  the  presidency  of  a 
college  thus  placed.  What  should  he  do?  The  struggle  in  his 
own  mind  was  a  sharp  one  ;  but  it  ended  in  the  following  note 
to  Dr.  Binney,  and  an  enclosure  addressed  to  the  Executive 
Committee,  not  one  word  of  which  has  he  ever  seen  occasion 
to  modify,  except  for  under-statement:  — 

Rangoon,  May  13,  1874. 

My  dear  Dr.  Binney. 

The  paper,  of  which  the  enclosed  is  an  exact  copy,  goes  to  Dr. 
Murdock  by  the  next  mail.  While  I  fear  that  its  contents  will  dis¬ 
appoint  and  pain  you,  I  venture  to  hope  that  you  will  not  doubt  my 
unabated  respect  and  affection  for  yourself,  nor  that  I  am  acting  con¬ 
scientiously,  and  for  what  my  imperfect  judgment  tells  me  are  the  best 
interests  of  the  college.  You  will  use  your  liberty,  of  course,  and  oppose 
my  views  to  the  Committee  (in  Boston)  as  strongly  as  you  please. 

I  only  desire  that  the  will  of  Christ  may  be  done.  If  the  change 
proposed  should  be  effected,  I  trust  that  you  will  live  long  enough  to  see 
abundant  occasion  for  rejoicing  in  it.  If  you  knew  the  field  in  Bassein 
as  I  do,  I  feel  sure  that  you  would  be  the  first  and  strongest  advocate  of 
the  change.  If  you  can, 

Believe  me  always 

Affectionately  yours, 

C.  H.  CARPENTER. 

Some  years  before,  Mr.  Carpenter  had  corresponded  with  Dr. 
Binney  on  the  subject  of  removing  the  seminary  to  Bassein ; 
and  he  had  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  .latter  would  be  unal¬ 
terably  opposed  to  his  proposition.  The  letter  to  the  Executive 
Committee  set  forth  at  lensth  the  reasons  for  and  against  the 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED . 


187 


removal,  as  they  presented  themselves  to  the  mind  of  the  writer. 
It  is  too  long  for  insertion  here,  but  may  be  found  in  the  appen¬ 
dix  (A).  On  the  very  day  that  his  letter  was  mailed  to  Boston, 
Mr.  Carpenter  started  for  Bassein  to  lay  the  whole  matter  before 
the  Pastors’  Conference,  which  was  then  in  session.  The  result 
of  the  visit  and  consultation  was,  that  the  leading  Karens  joy¬ 
fully  welcomed  the  proposal,  and  promised  to  do  all  that  was 
asked  of  them  to  secure  so  great  a  boon  ;  viz.,  to  raise  twenty 
thousand  rupees  for  buildings,  to  give  all  the  rice  needed  year 
by  year  for  the  consumption  of  the-  pupils,  and  to  maintain  vig¬ 
orously  their  large  preparatory  school.  At  the  same  time  they 
expressed  the  fear  that  the  missionaries  of  other  stations  might 
feel  injured  by  the  removal,  and  that  selfish  motives  would  be 
attributed  to  them.  “We  do  not  wish,”  said  they,  “to  seek 
our  own  advantage  to  the  injury  of  our  brethren  in  other  stations  ; 
but,  if  the  Missionary  Union  on  public  grounds  sees  fit  to  make 
the  change,  we  will  receive  the  college  with  great  joy,  and  do 
all  in  our  power  for  its  upbuilding.” 

In  the  discussion,  and  voluminous  correspondence  which  fol¬ 
lowed  the  circulation  of  the  letter  of  May  13,  it  appeared  that 
several  of  the  missionaries  favored  the  removal  of  the  college  to 
the  Pwo-Ivaren  compound  at  Kemendine.  After  careful  con¬ 
sideration,  therefore,  Mr.  Carpenter  addressed  a  communication 
on  that  phase  of  the  question  to  the  brethren  concerned,  dated 
June  18,  1874,  a  copy  of  which  is  on  file  at  the  Mission  Rooms, 
with  letters  on  the  same  general  subject  dated  May  19,  25,  June 
1,  9,  July  1,  1874,  April  15,  1879,  etc. 

As  was  anticipated,  no  formal  offer  of  land  or  money  came 
from  the  Rangoon  Karens ;  and  all  save  two  of  the  missionaries 
in  charge  of  Karen  stations  finally  voted  against  the  removal 
to  Bassein.  Nearly  all  treated  the  fulfilment  of  the  Bassein 
pledges  as  impossible.  The  chief  argument  adduced  in  favor  of 
Rangoon  was  its  centrality.  Good  men  who  are  even  now  so 
unready  to  have  the  principles  of  self-support  applied  to  their 
own  fields,  naturally  would  not  be  disposed  to  aid  in  the  triumph 
of  those  principles  in  a  neighboring  field,  or  willingly  consent 


188  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS : 


to  the  transfer  of  a  general  institution  for  all  the  Karens  to 
a  place  where  their  own  pupils  might  note  unpleasant  con¬ 
trasts,  and  become  indoctrinated,  perchance,  with  unpalatable 
ideas. 

After  more  than  three  months  for  consideration,  Secretary 
Murdock  under  date  of  Oct.  7,  1874,  replied  to  Mr.  Carpenter’s 
letter  of  May  13.  In  communicating  the  decision  of  the  Com¬ 
mittee  that  4 4  it  is  inexpedient  to  remove  the  Rangoon  Baptist 
College  to  Bassein,”  he  wrote  the  following'  “  thoughts  :  ”  — 

a 

“  Mr.  Smith  would  like  to  go  to  Bassein.  ...  I  have  proposed  to  Mr. 
Hopkinson  to  exchange  fields  with  Mr.  Smith,  and  have  written  to  the 
latter  pledging  the  sanction  of  the  Committee  to  any  proper  measures  he 
may  take  towards  that  end.  If  Mr.  Smith  should  go  to  Bassein,  the  Com¬ 
mittee  would  be  willing  to  have  you  go  there  also,  provided  you  should 
not  think  it  wise  to  remain  with  the  college  in  Rangoon.  Once  on  that 
field  together,  the  Committee  would  be  glad  to  see  what  would  grow  from 
the  intelligence,  zeal,  and  liberality  of  the  Bassein  Christians.  The  Exec¬ 
utive  Committee  will  do  all  in  their  power  for  education  in  that  field,  and 
the  Woman’s  Board  will  also  make  liberal  grants  to  the  cause.  Questions 
of  location  have  often  in  this  country  been  settled  by  the  natural  tend¬ 
ency  of  things,  and  the  law  of  supply  and  demand.  Under  the  inspira¬ 
tion  of  yourself  and  Mr.  Smith,  five  to  ten  years  will  settle  the  question 
whether  a  college  will  grow  better  in  Bassein  or  Rangoon;  and  a  college 
that  does  not  grow  out  of  the  necessities  and  the  liberality  of  the  people 
will  be  a  college  only  in  name,  however  it  may  be  fostered  by  outside 
influences.  ...  I  do  not  mean  that  you  are  to  do  your  best  without 
outside  help.  I  have  not  a  doubt  but  you  will  have  such  aid  as  may  be 
necessary  to  make  such  an  institution  as  the  Karens  need;  and  just  to 
the  extent  that  the  other  districts  rise  to  a  sense  of  their  needs,  they  will 
seek  such  advantages  as  you  may  be  able  to  offer  them.  You  may  wait 
ten  years  before  you  name  the  institution  which  may  possibly  grow  up  in 
the  promising  soil  which  you  have  so  essentially  contributed  to  cultivate. 
I  need  scarcely  add  that  I  am  in  favor  of  your  returning  to  Bassein,  when 
you  leave  the  college  in  Rangoon,  for  the  reasons  indicated  in  these 
hints.  .  .  . 

“  I  want  to  see  what  the  next  ten  years  will  do  for  the  churches  in 
Bassein,  —  to  test  the  principle  of  self-support ,  at  least  in  one  of  the  dis¬ 
tricts  of  Burma.  [Italics  by  editor.]  By  self-support  I  mean  something 
more  than  a  capacity  to  live,  and  maintain  the  stated  preaching  and  ordi¬ 
nances  of  the  gospel :  I  include  a  function  of  spiritual  propagation.  Let 
us  labor  and  wait  and  see. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


189 


“I  will  only  add  that  I  sincerely  respect  your  convictions,  and  honor 
you  for  the  frank  and  manly  utterance  you  have  given  them.” 

What  all  these  confidential  but  official  pledges  of  sympathy 
and  assistance  amounted  to,  will  be  seen  farther  on.  The  Secre- 
tai’37  a  month  later  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  his  sugges¬ 
tion  about  joining  Mr.  Smith  with  us  in  Bassein  was  hardly 
practicable,  if  indeed  it  were  wise.  This  was  soon  followed  by 
the  appointment  of  Mr.  Smith  to  the  presidency  of  the  college. 
Mr.  Smith  himself,  who  had  favored  the  transfer  of  the  college 
to  Bassein  for  a  time,  and  had  promised  to  join  us  in  educational 
work  there,  changed  his  plans,  and  returned  to  the  United  States 
for  the  health  of  his  family.  Mr.  Carpenter’s  resignation  had 
been  in  the  hands  of  the  Executive  Committee  for  some  months, 
with  an  alternative  proposition  either  to  begin  a  new  mission  to 
the  Ka-khyens  in  Upper  Burma,  or  to  return  to  his  old  field  in 
Bassein.  At  the  special  request  of  the  Executive  Committee 
he  remained  in  charge  of  the  college  until  the  close  of  the  year, 
when  it  was  decided  that  he  should  return  alone  to  Bassein. 

ONE,  WITH  GOD,  IS  A  MAJORITY. 

Without  relaxing  for  a  single  week  the  earnest  prosecution 
of  evangelistic  work  at  home  and  abroad,  the  special  work  of 
improving  and  enlarging  the  school  in  Bassein  went  on  with  far 
greater  spirit  and  success  than  Mr.  Carpenter  even  had  dared 
to  hope.  The  Woman’s  Societies,  East  and  West,  aided  essen¬ 
tially  by  sending  from  time  to  time,  as  the  need  arose,  several 
devoted  and  accomplished  teachers  to  our  help.  Above  all,  the 
Divine  help  and  blessing  was  added  in  rich,  overflowing  meas¬ 
ures.  During  the  six  years  (1875-1880),  over  two  thousand 
Karens  were  baptized  on  the  Bassein  field.  Foreign  missions 
were  vigorously  begun  to  the  Ka-khyens  in  Upper  Burma,  and 
to  the  Karens  in  Northern  Siam,  besides  something  done  for 
the  heathen  in  the  Prome,  Shwaygyeen,  and  Toungoo  districts. 
From  four  to  six  native  missionaries,  some  of  them  with  fami¬ 
lies,  were  supported  in  those  distant  regions  during  most  of 


190  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


this  period,  besides  an  average  of  ten  or  a  dozen  men  itinerat¬ 
ing  in  the  home  field  in  the  travelling  season. 

Not  less  than  Rs.  228,000  in  cash,  or  its  equivalent,  were 
contributed  for  religious  and  educational  purposes  by  the 
Bassein  Sgaus  alone,  or  an  average  of  Rs.  38,000  a  year  for 
the  entire  period.  Permanent  buildings,  convenient  and  ample 
for  the  accommodation  of  three  hundred  boarding-pupils,  were 
completed  without  aid  in  money  from  the  government  or  from 
America,  at  a  cost  to  the  Karens  and  local  friends  of  more  than 
Rs.  60,000.  To  the  “  E.  L.  Abbott  Endowment  Fund,”  which 
is  mostly  invested  in  this  country,  the  Karens  have  contributed 
also  over  Rs.  40,000  in  cash.  To  this  may  be  added  the  “Al¬ 
pha  Fund”  of  $15,000,  which  ultimately  goes  for  the  support 
of  the  Bassein  Institute,  and  the  “Mark  Carpenter  Scholarship 
Fund”  of  $4,500. 

The  pupils,  meanwhile,  were  taking  a  good  stand  in  the  peri¬ 
odical  examinations  of  the  province  ;  three  of  the  former  pupils 
and  teachers  of  the  school  were  appointed  deputy  inspectors  of 
Karen  schools,  on  salaries  of  two  hundred  rupees  a  month,  the 
only  Karens  who  have  received  such  appointments  in  Burma ; 
and  for  a  series  of  years  the  Bassein  Institute  received  from  the 
educational  officers  of  government  higher  praise  than  any  other 
aided  missionary  institution  in  the  land.1 

Little  by  little  the  mists  had  lifted,  and  it  began  to  appear 
that  there  were  no  pupils  and  no  call  for  a  real  college  among 
the  Karens  anywhere.  There  began  to  be  very  substantial 
reason  to  hope  that  the  people  of  Bassein,  with  the  Divine 
blessing,  would  be  able  to  secure  all  the  advantages  for  secular 
education  that  they  needed,  or  cared  about,  without  foreign 
help,  and  that  they  might  be  able,  even,  to  invite  their  brethren 
of  other  districts  to  share  their  advantages  with  them.  It 
became  especially  clear  that  a  college  like  the  one  in  Rangoon 
(after  it  was  decided  to  put  all  races  on  a  footing  of  perfect 
equality  within  it)  was  not  satis  factor}7  to  the  Karens  of  Bas- 


1  See  Self-Support  iu  Bassein,  Appendix  C,  pp.  415-420. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED.  191 

sein,  if  indeed  it  was  satisfactory  to  the  Karens  of  any  district. 
The  death  of  one  of  the  most  promising  Karen  pupils  from  a 
murderous  blow  by  one  of  his  Burm'an  schoolfellows,  and  the 
stabbing  of  a  Shan  (  ?)  pupil  by  another  Burman  student,  soon 
after  Mr.  Carpenter’s  retirement  from  the  college,  tended  to 
intensify  the  race  prejudice,  and  to  confirm  the  people  of  Bas- 
sein  in  their  indifference  to  an  institution  which  they  had  lately 
invited  so  cordially  to  their  hearts  and  homes.  What  they 
wanted,  in  common  with  all  their  race,  was  a  Karen  college, 
and  that  they  were  patiently  building  for  themselves  on  the 
very  spot  where  they  wanted  it  to  be.1 

UNEXPECTED  OPPOSITION  FROM  VARIOUS  QUARTERS. 

We  ventured  to  believe  that  the-  plan  marked  out  for  us  by 
the  Secretary  in  1874  (barring  the  help  which  he  promised) 
had  been  followed  to  the  letter.  But  the  success  vouchsafed 
unto  us  was  altogether  too  complete  to  be  endured  with  equa¬ 
nimity  by  some  of  the  brotherhood.  The  self-supporting  up¬ 
start  must  be  opposed  and  quenched,  if  possible.  A  rehearsal  of 
the  opposition  endured  for  years  from  those  who  were  hundreds 
of  miles  away  from  us,  whose  hands  should  have  been  full  of 
their  own  work,  would  be  unprofitable.  It  was  usually  directed 
at  our  faithful,  but  ill-informed,  Karens,  on  the  side  where  our 
strength  lay,  but  where  we  were  most  vulnerable.  The  predic¬ 
tions  of  failure  ;  that  the  endowment  funds  sent  to  America 
would  never  be  seen  again  ;  false  innuendoes  as  to  Mr.  Carpen¬ 
ter’s  standing  with  the  Executive  Committee  ;  the  small  hurri¬ 
cane  from  Toungoo  over  the  modest  Greek  cross  with  which  we 
had  dared  to  crown  the  tower  of  the  Ko  Thahbyu  Memorial 
Hall ;  the  talk  about  the  possible  alienation  of  the  property, 
on  which  the  Karens  had  spent  so  many  thousands  of  rupees, 
through  the  bad  faith  of  the  Missionary  Union, — these,  and 
many  more  strange  things  which  we  would  gladly  forget  for- 
,  - - — . — - - — - . 

1  For  Rev.  E.  L.  Abbott’s  weighty  opinion  on  this  subject,  see  Self- 

Support  in  Bassein,  pp.  362,  363,  footnote. 

* 


192  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


ever,  helped  to  prove  that  self-support  in  Burma,  at  least,  is  a 
thorny  road  to  travel,  and  that  it  will  remain  so  until  it  becomes 
the  fashion. 

Kind  words,  though  cheap,  are  often  grateful,  and  of  these 
we  had  many  from  the  Society  headquarters.  But  the  time 
came  when  the  policy  of  active  repression  took  the  place  of 
broken  promises  and  hope  deferred.  In -the  printed  circular 
of  Nov.  19,  1878,  the  Executive  Committee  made  use  of  this 
language  :  — 

“  The  college  should  be  the  standard,  and  the  station-schools  should 
be  graded  down  from  that,  and  be  not  the  rivals,  but  the  feeders,  of  the 
college.  .  .  .  They  must  not  aspire  to  be  colleges,  nor  in  any  sense  be 
rivals  of  the  college.  .  .  .  The  schools,  therefore,  must  be  made  helpful 
to  the  college,  and  be  conducted  in  harmony  with  it.  Should  there  fail 
to  be  harmony  of  conviction  on  the  part  of  the  missionaries,  with  refer¬ 
ence  to  the  position  and  work  of  the  station-schools,  there  must  not  fail 
to  be  harmony  of  action.  ” 

To  the  threat  implied  in  the  above  language,  Mr.  Carpenter 
replied,  soon  after  the  receipt  of  the  circular,  as  follows  :  — 

“Others  can  reply  for  themselves ;  but  for  my  own  part  I  am  bound 
to  say,  that  in  questions  of  vital  importance  to  the  progress  of  the  Re¬ 
deemer’s  kingdom  in  this  land,  my  actions  must  always  conform  to  my 
convictions.  For  seventeen  years  I  have  done  my  best  to  render  loyal 
service,  for  Christ’s  sake,  to  the  American  Baptist  Missionary  Union. 
In  my  poor  judgment,  the  most  valuable  service  of  my  missionary  life  was 
rendered  in  my  protest  against  the  location  of  the  college  in  1874,  in  my 
final  abandonment  of  that  enterprise  in  1875,  and  in  the  years  that  have 
followed.  From  the  Union  and  from  its  executive  officers  I  have  re¬ 
ceived,  personally,  only  kindness  and  consideration.  To  sunder  these 
relations  would  give  me  and  mine  life-long  regret;  yet,  though  it  should 
come  to  that,  I  am  constrained  to  say  that  my  convictions,  my  actions, 
and  my  speech  arerand  must  be,  diametrically  opposed  to  your  present 
policy  relative  to  the  location  of  the  Karen  educational  institutions.” 

After  the  completion  of  our  buildings,  when  informed  of  our 
plan  to  raise  an  endowment  of  fifty  thousand  rupees  from  the 
devoted  Karens  of  Bassein,  Secretary  Murdock  wrote  as  fol¬ 
lows,  under  date  of  Jan.  31,  1879  :  — 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


193 


“We  have  thought  it  possible,  that  by  a  gradual  growth  the  school  in 
Bassein  might  settle  the  problem  of  higher  education  in  Burma;  and  we 
certainly  have  not  been  averse  to  such  a  solution.  But  you  cannot  be 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  many  missionaries  .  .  .  have  looked  upon  the 
measures  already  taken  as  forced,  and  as  designed  to  supersede  the  col¬ 
lege,  so  called,  in  Rangoon.  .  .  .  On  these  and  other  grounds  [health, 
need  of  rest,  etc.]  the  Committee  respectfully  suggest  to  you  that  it  is  at 
present  inexpedient  for  you  to  embark  in  the  effort  to  raise  the  proposed 
endowment.” 

The  Secretary  wrote  again  to  the  same  effect  May  6,  but  his 
letters  did  not  arrive  until  our  plans  were  matured  and  in  pro¬ 
cess  of  fulfilment.  As  to  the  idea  that  our  previous  measures 
had  been  u  forced,”  we  have  only  to  call  attention  to  the  fact, 
that  under  my  kind  and  gentle  successor,  Rev.  C.  A.  Nichols, 
the  average  contributed  during  the  four  completed  years  is  Rs. 
31,065  per  year,  to  Rs.  30,104  for  the  ten  years  preceding. 
And  as  to  the  oft-repeated  charge  that  the  college  was  failing 
through  my  opposition,  I  affirm  that  it  is  based  on  an  unfounded 
suspicion.  My  hands  and  brain  were  over- taxed  with  my  legit¬ 
imate  work,  ever  expanding,  on  a  great  field.  It  is  true  that  I 
did  not  believe  in  the  college  ;  that  as  an  advanced  school  for 
Karens,  I  regarded  it  as  moribund.  It  is  also  true  that  I  did 
not  support  the  college,  although  I  repeatedly  gave  the  pupils 
in  the  first  class  permission  to  go  to  the  college  if  they  wished. 
My  regard  for  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Packer  would  never  have  allowed 
me  to  oppose  their  work  actively,  and  I  never  did.  They  have 
simply  been  struggling  heroically  against  the  inherent  difficul¬ 
ties  of  their  situation.  In  so  far  as  they  have  succeeded  in 
getting  pay  for  the  board  of  their  pupils,  they  have  done  well ; 
but  something  more  than  that  is  necessary  in  any  country, 
before  much  can  be  said  about  “  self-support.” 

REMOVAL  OF  THE  SEMINARY  AGAIN  PROPOSED. 

Meanwhile,  it  had  become  perfectly  clear  that  a  vernacular 
Bible-scliool  in  Bassein  itself  was  a  necessity  for  the  proper 
development  of  the  work  among  the  churches  and  heathen  of 


194  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


that  large  district,  —  a  work  which  was  rapidly  expanding  from 
Basseiu  as  a  centre  to  the  far-distant  north  and  east.  There 
being  no  pledges,  like  those  which  had  been  adduced  in  the 
case  of  the  college,  to  fix  the  location  of  the  seminary  in  Ran¬ 
goon,  Mr.  Carpenter  wrote  to  the  Executive  Committee  in  1876, 
urging  the  removal  of  that  institution  to  Bassein,  and  pledging 
generous  support.  In  November  of  that  year  the  Committee 
passed  this  vote  :  — 

“In  spite  of  the  reasons  which  favor  the  removal  of  the  Karen 
Theological  Seminary  to  Bassein,  the  Committee  deem  any  change  In  its 
location  at  the  present  time  inexpedient.” 

Again,  at  the  annual  meeting,  March  7,  1879,  being  re¬ 
quested  to  renew  their  offer  by  Dr.  Smith,  the  president  of  the 
seminary,  the  Bassein  Sgau  association  pledged  itself  to  give 
buildings  and  cash  to  the  amount  of  Rs.  10,000,  the  use  of 
the  west  wing  of  Memorial  Hall  temporarily,  and  all  the  rice 
required  for  the  pupils  of  the  seminary  in  perpetuo,  provided 
the  Missionary  Union  should  consent  to  transfer  the  seminary 
to  their  spacious  compound.  This  munificent  offer  from  a  poor 
people,  unprecedented  in  the  history  of  modern  missions,  has 
not  been  accepted  ;  for  a  long  time  it  was  not  even  acknowl¬ 
edged. 

It  is  never  too  late  to  mend  a  great  wrong.  So  long  as  the 
only  institutions  for  the  higher  education  of  an  entire  people 
and  for  the  training  of  Christian  laborers  for  their  own  and 
other  heathen  races  are  miserably  failing  to  perform  their  office, 
and  must  from  their  unfortunate  location  continue  to  fail  to  the 
end  of  time,  the  question  of  their  location  becomes  an  irrepress¬ 
ible  question.  It  is  not  possible  to  stifle  its  agitation  ;  and  if 
there  is  any  power  in  truth, ,  if  there  is  any  tendency  in  human 
affairs,  divinely  administered,  to  the  repair  of  injury  in  spite 
of  malpractice,  as  in  nature,  so  surely  will  there  be  a  change. 
The  reasons  which  called  for  a  change  in  the  location  of  the 
college  in  1874  still  exist,  and  they  call  more  loudly  still  for  a 
change  in  the  location  of  the  Karen  Theological  Seminary. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


195 


The  arguments  applicable  to  one  are  applicable  to  both.  For 
those  arguments  we  beg  to  refer  especially  to  the  letters  in  the 
appendix  to  this  tract.  -  We  will  now  consider  briefly  some  objec¬ 
tions  which  have  been  urged  against  the  change,  beginning  with 
that  which  is  latest  in  point  of  time. 

(1)  THE  RECENT  “  EMANCIPATION  ”  IN  BASSEIN. 

The  idea  that  the  Karen  Christians  in  any  district  have  been 
led  about  by  the  nose,  by  their  missionaries,  as  they  lead  about 
their  buffaloes,  is  sufficiently  absurd,  but  it  may  have  been  put 
in  circulation  in  some  quarters.  If  it  be  so,  and  if  there  has 
been  a  consequent  restlessness  under  “  the  missionary  yoke,”  in 
Bassein  or  in  any  part  of  Burma,  it  can  be  confidently  affirmed 
that  the  trouble  and  the  mischief  are  due,  not  to  the  practice  of 
self-support,  but  to  the  superficial  education  and  the  superficial 
ideas  of  freedom  and  social  life  which  have  been  acquired  by 
our  young  brethren  from  over  the  sea  during  their  sojourn  in 
this  country. 

It  will  be  said  that  recent  events  in  Bassein  preclude  forever 
the  idea  of  establishing  at  that  place  a  college  or  seminary  for 
the  Karen  people.  But  is  the  anomalous  “Karen  Nation  Soci¬ 
ety  ’  ’  any  less  active  in  Rangoon  ? 

The  story  comes  to  me  in  this  wise.  Under  extreme  prov¬ 
ocation,  a  kind-hearted  Christian  man  saw  fit  to  strike  a  dis¬ 
obedient  pupil  to  the  floor  as  an  act  of  discipline  ;  and  the 
story  of  the  falling  boy  and  of  the  bloody  face  was  circulated 
far  and  wide  in  the  district.  Demagogic  arts  are  not  unknown 
in  Burma.  There  was  great  excitement ;  and  at  the  meeting  of 
the  trustees  which  followed,  the  missionary  was  relieved  from 
the  superintendency  of  the  school,  but  not  from  the  care  of  the 
churches  and  the  jungle  work.  Rev.  Thanbyah,  a  Karen  grad¬ 
uate  of  Rochester,  whom  I  highly  esteemed  as  a  pupil  in  Ran¬ 
goon  many  years  ago,  was  elected  superintendent ;  and  the 
retirement  of  the  two  American  ladies  immediately  followed, 
although  they  were  invited  to  continue  their  valued  assistance. 


196  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


It  has  been  asserted  confidently,  that  the  Bassein  Karens  have 
shown  by  this  act  that  they  wish  to  be  free  from  American 
control,  and  to'  get  on  without  American  missionaries.  This 
is  by  no  means  proven.  Things  may  have  have  been  said  by 
individuals  under  excitement,  which  seemed  to  imply  that ;  but 
I  know  that  people  well,  and  I  am  confident  that  the  sober  sec¬ 
ond  thought  of  the  pastors  and  the  people  generally  will  be  to 
hold  fast  to  the  missionaries  to  whom  they  owe  so  much. 

The  presence  of  three  or  four  Karens  of  ability,  educated  in 
America,  adds,  of  course,  a  new  element  to  the  work  in  Bassein. 
They  are  able  to  do  much  to  aid  in  developing  the  work.  They 
can  also  do  much  to  embarrass  and  hinder  the  American  teach¬ 
ers,  if  they  choose  ;  but  it  cannot  be  that  they  will  persistently 
choose  the  part  of  the  nihilist  and  the  obstructive.  To  my 
mind  it  is  probable  that  a  short  trial  of  the  responsibilities  of  an 
independent  control  of  their  school  affairs,  with  all  the  intricate 
relations  to  government  and  the  Missionary  Union,  will  convince 
them  and  their  people  that  they  cannot  for  the  present  success¬ 
fully  conduct  the  Institute  even,  without  an  American  head. 
Whenever  they  can  do  so,  none  will  rejoice  more  heartily  than 
their  emancipated  missionaries.1 

A  letter  came  to  me  a  few  days  ago  from  one  of  the  ablest, 
if  not  the  ablest,  of  all  the  educated  Karens  in  Burma,  passion¬ 
ately  protesting  against  the  idea  that  his  people  have  any  wish 
to  dispense  with  the  help  of  their  missionaries.  I  translate  from 
his  letter,  dated  Bassein,  Nov.  21,  1885  :  — 

“  Teacher  Nichols  advised  us  to  make  a  trial  of  a  Karen  superintend¬ 
ent;  and  the  majority,  understanding  that  it  was  only  an  experiment, 
consented.  There  was  no  disposition  to  drive  away  the  American  teacli- 

1  While  the  above  was  in  the  printer’s  hands,  word  comes  that  the 
Karen  trustees  have  rescinded  their  former  action,  and  unanimously  re¬ 
elected  Rev.  Mr.  Nichols  to  the  superintendency  of  the  Institute.  Accord¬ 
ing^  he  and  all  of  the  American  teachers  are  back  again  in  their  old  places, 
and  he  writes  that  the  atmosphere  is  all  the  clearer  for  the  brief  episode. 
A  similar  experience  may  become  necessary  and  equally  advantageous  at 
other  stations,  although  the  large  use  of  American  funds  at  most  of  them 
probably  tends  to  repress  the  feeling  of  independence. 


now  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


197 


ers.  .  .  .  When  I  go  from  village  to  village,  the  people  come  to  me,  and 
say,  ‘  We  hear  that  the  teacher  in  the  city  is  going  to  leave  us,  and  that 
teacher  C.  is  not  coming  back  again.  What  shall  we  do?  ’  .  .  .  Even 
the  trees  and  the  flowers  on  the  mission  compound  show  that  power  is 
gone.  I  cannot  sleep  for  sorrow.  It  is  reported  that  the  Missionary 
Union  is  going  to  withhold  all  teachers  from  us.  ...  I  love  my  own 
people  better  than  I  love  you  white  people,  hut  the  time  has  not  come  for 
Karens  to  be  at  the  head  of  this  work,  either  in  the  town  or  jungle.  In 
order  to  the  advancement  of  my  people  in  knowledge,  you  Americans 
must  still  lead  us  on.  .  .  .  Finally ,  I  would  not  limit  the  power  of  God , 
but  if  the  Missionary  Union  wishes  to  see  the  Bassein  Karens  become  a 
proverb  for  failure  and  destruction,  let  teacher  N.  cease  to  lead  us;  let 
teacher  C.  not  come  again,  and  they  will  see  their  desire.  [Italics  by 
editor.]  ...  I  write  for  myself  alone,  but  a  great  many  pastors  and 
elders  fully  agree  with  me.” 

To  my  own  mind,  these  occurrences  are  but  a  fresh  argument 
for  the  location  of  the  general  school,  or  schools,  in  Bassein.  I 
believe  that  the  desire  of  the  people  for  them,  and  their  willing¬ 
ness  to  fulfil  all  tlieir  pledges,  are  as  strong  as  ever.  After  the 
little  flurry  in  the  management  of  their  local  school  has  subsided, 
they  will  settle  down,  and  be  more  loyal  than  ever,  if  a  kind  and 
conciliatory  course  is  taken  with  them.  They  have  always  been 
a  spirited,  independent  people.  Mr.  Beecher  used  to  say  that 
they  were  “  provokingly  independent.”  That  is  the  kind  of 
people  to  do  and  to  dare,  the  kind  of  people  who  can  be  made 
something  of.  No  Christians  in  Burma  have  excelled  them  in 
loyalty  to  their  missionaries  in  the  past.  Send  them  men  who 
are  worthy  to  lead  them  ;  establish  Dr.  Smith  and  his  seminary 
among  them  ;  give  Mr.  Nichols  back  to  them,  —  and  they  will 
prove  to  be  as  loyal  and  as  responsive  to  wise  and  brave  leader¬ 
ship  as  they  have  been  in  the  past.  Which  is  preferable,  a  pair 
of  strong  and  spirited  horses,  or  a  lazy,  lifeless  pair  which  wait 
upon  the  whip?  Which  is  most  interesting,  the  “  active,  highly 
gifted  crab,”  albeit  he  flashes  sidewise  to  the  right  and  left 
in  a  curious  fashion,  or  the  absorbing,  spawning,  nauseous 
sacculina? 


198  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


(2)  AS  TO  THAT  “UNPARDONABLE  WASTE  OF  MONEY.” 

In  their  printed  circular  of  Nov.  19,  1878,  the  Executive 
Committee  say  that  the  college  should  be  sustained  where  it  is, 
“on  account  of  the  large  and  expensive  building  which  has 
been  erected  for  the  college”  at  Rangoon.  But  prior  to  its 
erection,  before  a  rupee  had  been  expended  upon  it,  the  objec¬ 
tions  to  the  location  in  Rangoon  were  set  before  the  Committee 
in  extenso ,  and  the  man  to  whom  the  work  of  building  was  con¬ 
fided  resigned,  rather  than  be  a  party  to  the  waste.  They 
themselves  gave  the  order  for  the  work  to  go  on,  they  them¬ 
selves  authorized  the  expenditure  of  not  less  than  Rs.  30,000 
in  buildings  on  that  location  ;  and  now  they  adduce  that  as 
an  argument  why  the  mistake  and  the  wrong  should  be  per¬ 
petuated. 

“  The  college  is  located,”  they  say.  “  It  could  not  be  trans¬ 
ferred  to  any  other  place  without  an  unpardonable  waste  of 
money.”  It  is  never  too  late  to  right  a  wrong,  and  the  waste 
of  money  is  all  on  the  side  of  keeping  the  college  and  seminary 
where  they  are.  By  the  annexation  of  Upper  Burma,  which 
has  been  already  consummated,  the  commercial,  if  not  the 
political,  importance  of  Rangoon  will  be  trebled,  and  the  value 
of  real  estate  must  be  greatly  enhanced  in  the  near  future. 
The  college  and  seminary  compounds  contain  over  sixteen  acres 
of  fine,  high  ground,  in  the  heart  of  the  most  desirable  quarter 
for  residences,  towards  which  the  business-quarter  is  continually 
advancing.  Mr.  Freiday’s  suggestion,  to  keep  the  property 
as  a  permanent  endowment  after  the  removal,  to  convert  the 
buildings  into  dwelling-houses,  and  use  the  monthly  rents  for 
the  salaries  and  other  current  expenses,  is  an  excellent  one. 
The  great  rise  in  real  estate  is  yet  to  come ;  but  come  it 
will.  The  site  of  the  old  town-church  (Episcopal)  sold  for  two 
or  three  dollars  a  foot,  if  I  remember  rightly. 

The  goodly  compound  of  twenty-six  acres  in  Bassein  is  ample 
for  college,  seminary,  and  all  needful  station  purposes,  without 
additional  purchase.  If  the  changes  are  made  a  little  gradually, 


now  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


199 


I  am  sure  that  the  Karens  and  other  local  friends  would  be  able 
to  provide  all  the  additional  buildings  which  might  be  needed. 
Then,  at  a  low  computation,  the  four  dwelling-houses  now  in 
readiness,  and  those  which  could  be  made  by  re-converting  the 
vacated  school-buildings  in  Rangoon,  would  bring  in  a  net 
income  of  not  less  than  six  hundred  rupees  a  month,  and  the 
gain  from  the  removal  would  be  something  like  this :  — 

Annual  rental  Rangoon  property,  say  ....  Rs.  7,200 


Rice,  etc.,  given  by  Karens  to  college  and  seminary  .  .  -2,000 

Cost  of  preparatory  departments  borne  by  them  and  gov¬ 
ernment  . 8,000 

Lower  cost  of  fish,  fuel,  etc.  . .  500 

Saving  in  taxes,  say .  500 


Total  annual  saving . .  Rs.  18,200 

This  I  regard  as  a  low  estimate.  Whenever  it  is  thought  best 
to  erect  additional  buildings  for  rental,  the  income  of  the  Ran¬ 
goon  property  may  be  largely  increased,  and  ultimately  it 
should  bring  enough  to  provide  an  ample  endowment  for  both 
institutions.  In  a  word,  it  is  undeniable  that  all  of  the  waste 
of  money,  and  the  incalculably  greater  waste  of  men  and  influ¬ 
ence,  is  in  remaining  where  we  are. 

(3)  ARE  THE  OBJECTIONS  TO  RANGOON  “FANCIFUL”? 

The  circular  also  says  this  :  u  Nor  does  your  Committee  think 
that  there  are  any  strong  reasons  for  such  a  transfer.”  The 
Secretary  writes  to  the  same  effect,  that  the  objections  urged 
against  Rangoon  “are  conjectural,  rather  than  real.” 

For  twenty-five  years  we  have  sent  our  choicest  young  men  to 
Rangoon,  with  what  result  ?  Any  Karen  missionary  can  tell  you 
that  not  one  in  three  of  the  hundreds  of  choice  Christian  men 
who  have  received  more  or  less  training  in  the  seminary  at  Ran¬ 
goon  are  now  to  he  found  engaged  in  Christian  work  as  preachers 
or  teachers.  I  went  over  the  whole  list,  man  by  man,  a  few  years 


200  SELF-SUPrORTING  SCIIOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


ago,  so  that  I  am  not  speaking  at  random.  Two-thirds  of  them, 
at  least,  are  engaged  in  trade,  timber  business,  tax-gathering, 
or  paddy-making.  And  yet  the  Secretary  says  that  the  objec¬ 
tions  to  Rangoon  are  “  conjectural,”  and  “  not  real  ”  ! 

The  Karens,  in  their  native  state,  are  an  exclusively  agricul¬ 
tural  people.  They  nowhere  dwell  in  towns.  So  also  the 
Kyens,  Iva-khyens,  and  Red  Karens,  to  whom  we  wish  to  send 
Karen  preachers.  Our  grand  object  is  the  training  of  devoted, 
self-sacrificing,  and  efficient  preachers  and  school-teachers  for 
jungle-service.  For  this  purpose  you  decree  that  our  youthful 
rustics  shall  resort  for  four,  six,  or  eight  years,  to ’the  chief  city 
of  the  land.  You  build  your  schools  in  the  heart  of  that  city, 
a  city  filled  with  the  excitement  of  courts,  the  noisy  marts  of 
trade,  shipping,  railways,  —  a  Babel  of  tongues,  —  with  liquor- 
shops,  prostitutes,  and  all  kinds  of  temptation  to  worldliness 
and  vice  on  every  hand:  Our  young  men  are  unfitted  for  hum¬ 
ble,  self-sacrificing  labor  in  the  forests  and  mountains  ;  they  are 
largely  secularized,  and  some  of  them  are  morally  ruined,  by 
Rangoon.  There  is  evidence  of  these  facts  in  abundance  in 
the  Secretary’s  pigeon-holes  ;  and  yet  he  writes  to  me  that  the 
objections  to  Rangoon  “  are  conjectural,  rather  than  real  ”  ! 

(4)  VOTES  TO  BE  WEIGHED  AS  WELL  AS  COUNTED. 

But,  again,  the  Executive  Committee  say  that  they  “  are  com¬ 
pelled  to  regard  the  views  of  the  body  of  the  missionaries.” 
Yes  ;  but  have  the  Baptist  churches  of  America  nothing  to  say 
in  such  a  matter?  The  body  of  missionaries  do  not  propose  to 
support  the  college  and  seminary  where  they  are,  from  their  own 
pockets.  Nor  would  it  seem  that  they  propose  to  have  their 
native  Christians  do  it.  No  ;  but  with  an  assurance  and  a  blind¬ 
ness  to  the  tendency  of  things  which  is  amazing,  they  propose 
to  have  American  Christians  keep  on  bearing  the  chief  burden 
of  their  own  station-schools,  contribute  heavily  for  the  support 
of  their  native  preachers,  advance  into  Upper  Burma  in  force, 
and  then,  when  a  station  which  has  been  run  on  the  broad,  self- 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


201 


support  gauge  for  thirty  years,  proposes,  with  their  leave,  to 
relieve  the  Missionary  Union  from  the  necessity  of  further  out¬ 
lay  for  one  or  both  of  the  general  schools,  they  say,  “  Stand 
back;  it  shall  not  be!”  So  long  have  they  been  allowed  to 
draw  upon  America  at  will,  that  the  privilege  has  become  to 
them  a  right,  which  they  think  to  exercise  to  the  end  of  time. 
The  parasite,  meanwhile,  drops  its  coddled  members  one  after 
die  other,  and  rejoices  in  increasing  helplessness,  and  in  fulfill¬ 
ing  the  functions  of  a  self-complacent  incubus  in  the  militant 
.  Church  Universal. 

A  SUMMING-UP  OF  THE  MATTER. 

In  Rangoon,  under  Dr.  Packer,  we  have  a  college  on  which 
American  Christians  have  expended  (including  the  salary,  etc., 
of  the  American  teachers)  over  $75,000.  At  the  end  of  another 
year,  after  fifteen  years  of  toil,  the  president  hopes  to  have  a 
small  class  ready  for  entrance  upon  collegiate  studies,  under  the 
low  Calcutta  standard.  He  reports  forty-five  of  his  students 
as  pursuing  primary  studies,  leaving  in  the  “  higher  depart¬ 
ment  ”  sixty-five,  who  must  be  divided  between  the  grammar 
and  high-school  grades,  with  a  preponderance  in  favor  of  the 
former. 

Originally  established  for  the  Karens  alone,  who  number 
twenty-four  thousand  Baptist  church-members,  and  who  would 
naturally  (if  the  college  were  according  to  their  liking)  furnish 
nine-tenths  of  the  pupils,  we  find  but  thirty-two  Karen  pupils, 
to  sixty-two  Burmans,  three  Shans,  nine  Hindus,  and  four 
Chinese.  As  to  religion,  forty  of  them  belong  to  our  churches, 
while  forty-nine  are  Buddhists  and  four  are  Mohammedans  ;  the 
non-Christians  being  attracted  chiefly,  I  presume,  by  the  fact 
that  the  Baptist  college  charges  much  lower  fees  than  the 
neighboring  government  and  Church  of  England  schools.  The 
president  has  repeatedly  appealed  to  the  Karen  associations  for 
pecuniary  help,  but  in  vain. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  West  Street  is  Dr.  Smith,  working 


202  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS : 


hard  to  keep  np  the  depleted  seminary  in  a  plague-stricken  spot 
apart  from  all  entangling  alliances  with  Karen  missions  and  mis¬ 
sionaries.  For  the  last  five  years  the  monthly  “  Karen  Star,” 
of  which  he  is  the  editor,  has  abounded  in  appeals  to  Christian 
Karens  all  over  Burma,  to  contribute  two  cents  and  a  half  each, 
annually,  for  the  support  of  an  institution  which  has  cost  the 
Baptists  of  America  for  the  last  twenty  years  an  average  of 
more  than  $5,000  a  year.  In  response  he  has  received  a  total 
of  $1,109,  or  about  $222  annually,  with  a  decreasing  tendency. 

Neither  seminary  nor  college  has  an  endowment.  They 
have  land  and  buildings  bought  with  American  funds,  which  are 
of  considerable  commercial  value,  but  of  much  less  intrinsic 
value  for  school  purposes  than  the  premises  in  Bassein.  They 
depend  almost  entirely  upon  the  treasury  of  the  Missionary 
Union  ;  and  they  must  continue  so  to  depend,  so  long  as  they 
remain  where  they  are,  for  the  threefold  reason  that  they  are 
where  they  are  by  the  controlling  will  of  one  man,  Dr.  Binney, 
the  Karens  never  having  been  consulted  as  to  the  location,  or 
recognized  as  a  supporting  factor ;  from  the  fact  that  they  are 
kept  carefully  distinct  from  all  the  stations,  including  Rangoon  ; 
and,  lastly,  for  the  grave  reason  that,  notwithstanding  the  in¬ 
spiring  example  of  Bassein,  nearly  all  of  the  Karen  missions, 
even,  still  draw  largely  from  America,  both  for  the  support  of 
their  schools  and  their  preachers. 

What,  for  example,  can  the  Toungoo  Karens  be  fairly  ex¬ 
pected  to  do  for  general  institutions,  when  in  1885  the}7  drew 
from  America  $4,977  in  subsidies  for  their  work,  besides  help 
from  the  Burma  Convention,  their  entire  contributions  for  self- 
support  being  but  $3,622?  Tavoy  Karens  drew  $1,217  ;  Maul- 
main  Karens,  $1,549;  Maooben  Pwos,  $855;  Henthada  Ka¬ 
rens,  $2,680;  Rangoon  Sgaus,  $1,233;  Shwaygyeen  Karens, 
$492.  The  Bassein  Sgaus  drew  but  $235  in  subsidies,  while 
their  contributions  for  the  year  (including  the  interest  accruing 
on  their  “Abbott  Fund”)  amounted  to  $14,497,  a  little  more 
than  the  entire  sum  contributed  for  religious  and  educational 
purposes  by  all  the  Karen  Christians  outside  of  Bassein. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


203 


For  the  year  1879-80  (I  have  no  later  figures)  six  of  the 
schools  at  stations  above  named  were  supported  at  a  cost  of 
Rs.  25,525.  Of  this  aggregate,  American  Christians  contrib¬ 
uted  Rs.  14,427  ;  the  British  Government,  Rs.  6,2G0  ;  endow¬ 
ments  yielded  Rs.  540,  and  fees  Rs.  21  ;  while  the  Karen 
Christians  contributed  the  remaining  Rs.  4,277,  less  than  one- 
fifth. 

I  bring  forward  these  facts  not  to  exalt  Bassein,  nor  to  dis¬ 
parage  what  other  stations  have  done.  Many  Christians  outside 
of  Bassein  may  have  given  to  the  cause  of  Christ  all  that  they 
ought  to  give.  I  believe,  indeed,  that  they  might  and  ought  as 
a  whole  to  bear  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  cost  of  their 
own  schools  ;  but  I  bring  out  the  facts  here  simply  to  show,  that, 
aside  from  Bassein,  there  is  no  station  which  feels  itself  pre¬ 
pared  to  assume  the  full  support  of  its  local  work  even,  much 
less  to  assume  any  appreciable  part  of  the  support  of  general 
schools. 

In  Bassein,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have,  besides  that  noble 
circle  of  churches,  unequalled  in  all  our  missions  for  Christian 
enterprise  and  benevolence,  a  spacious  compound  of  unsurpassed 
beauty  and  healthfulness.  AVe  have  school  buildings  and  furni¬ 
ture,  superior  as  a  whole  to  those  of  any  mission-school  in 
Burma,  ample  for  300  boarding-pupils,  or  for  the  use  of  the 
preparatory  school,  a  “college”  and  a  seminary  for  years  to 
come.  AATe  have,  perhaps,  the  finest  corps  of  trained  native 
teachers  to  be  found  anywhere  in  our  missions,  and  a  school 
which  deserves  the  high  encomiums  which  have  been  pronounced 
upon  it  by  competent  judges  for  many  years. 

This  school,  indigenous  and  mainly  self-supporting  from  its 
origin,  already  has  endowment  funds  safely  invested  amounting 
to  more  than  $35,000.  Of  this  sum,  $20,000  yields  a  steady 
income  which  is  available  for  current  expenses,  and  $15,000 
will  do  so  on  the  death  of  the  donors.  With  the  income  of 
these  funds,  all  secured  without  appeal  to  the  Union  or  the 
Christian  public  of  America,  and  with  the  possibility  of  further 
aid  from  private  friends  if  the  enterprise  is  allowed  to  prosper, 


204  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 

it  is  quite  certain  that  even  now  the  Bassein  Karens  are  able  to 
support  (with  the  exception  of  the  necessary  American  teach¬ 
ers)  all  the  higher  secular  education,  including  English,  which 
they  or  Karens  anywhere  are  prepared  to  profit  by.  It  is  in 
just  such  communities  (is  it  not?)  that  Christian  schools  of  the 
higher  grade  take  rise  and  grow  naturally  in  Christian  lands. 
Human  nature  is  one,  and  the  commandment  one.  Why  not, 
then,  in  heathen  lands?  Has  the  Christian  law,  “To  him  that 
hath  shall  be  given,”  no  application  in  such  affairs?  The 
Bassein  Christians  consider  it  their  high  duty  and  privilege  to 
maintain  their  schools,  not  for  their  own  children  only,  but  for 
Karen  youth  from  all  quarters.  They  have  generously  opened, 
and  will  still  open,  their  doors  and  their  hearts  wide,  and  will 
welcome  all  freely  ;  but  in  all  consistency  and  sincerity  they  will 
still  beg  to  be  excused  from  contributions  to  the  support  of  the 
wasteful,  exogenous  experiments  which  have  been  carried  on 
for  so  many  years  in  that  great  Babel,  Rangoon. 

It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  Executive  Committee  at 
this  critical  juncture  will  have  the  nerve  and  the  faith,  even  if 
backed  by  public  opinion,  to  make  a  new  departure  in  the  only 
direction  which  seems  to  promise  substantial  relief;  viz.,  to  put 
all  the  Karen  schools  on  a  self-supporting  basis  forthwith. 
Let  the  schools  which  have  been  started  as  an  “  evangelizino; 
agency”  for  the  Burmans  and  other  races  be  made  over  to 
those  who  have  no  gospel  to  preach.  Let  the  station-schools 
without  exception  be  thrown  upon  the  local  support  which 
they  should  have  depended  upon  from  the  beginning.  Let  all 
appropriations  to  the  college  and  seminary  (save  American  sal¬ 
aries)  be  stopped  ;  and  if  those  deserving  institutions  must  die 
in  consequence,  and  prefer  to  die,  rather  than  be  transplanted 
to  the  hospitable  air  and  soil  of  Bassein,  let  them  die  the  death 
of  the  righteous  at  their  speediest  convenience.  Then,  at  last, 
let  the  ban  be  removed  from  the  vigorous  native  stock  which 
has  been  so  long  struggling  for  recognition  in  Bassein.  Let  it 
have  scope  to  grow  ;  give  it  a  little  cheap  sympathy  and  a  re¬ 
spectful  look  or  word  now  and  then,  and  a  few  years  hence  our 


nOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


205 


successors  shall  see  a  new  illustration  of  “  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.”  The  time  for  reconsideration  has  come  ;  and  the  final 
decision,  so  far  as  it  rests  with  American  Christians,  must  be 
near.  May  Heaven  grant  wisdom  and  send  success  to  the  insti¬ 
tution  of  Heaven’s  own  electing  ! 


ANNIVERSARY  PYROTECHNICS. 

An  enthusiastic  speaker  at  the  anniversaries  says,  u  Blot  out 
forever  that  word  Retrenchment ,  and  write  the  word  Forward !  ” 
But  if  our  missionaries  and  mission  managers  continue  to  im¬ 
pose  upon  the  churches  of  America  this  threefold  burden,  when 
Christ,  the  Head  of  the  Church,  lays  upon  us  but  one,  is  it  any 
wonder  that  our  operations  are  threatened  with  paralysis  ?  The 
King’s  business  requireth  haste,  indeed  ;  but  is  it  any  wonder 
that  there  is  a  significant  lack  of  elasticity  in  our  income  for 
missions,  and  a  painful  unresponsiveness  in  the  churches  to 
providential  openings  and  to  the  strongest  appeals?  It  is  for 
the  churches  of  America  (not  for  the  secretaries,  editors,  and 
missionaries)  to  say  whether  they  will  bear  this  threefold  bur¬ 
den  or  not.  It  is  for  them  to  say  whether  self-support  shall  be 
the  law  of  the  native  churches  abroad  or  not.  Let  us  bend  our 
backs  so  low  to  the  one,  Heaven-appointed  task  of  sending  forth 
a  multitude  of  preaching  men  and  women,  that  the  clamor  for 
eleemosynary  schools  and  support  for  native  assistants  shall  no 
longer  be  heard. 

Again,  we  say  that  what  we  plead  for  is  no  temporary  re¬ 
trenchment  under  the  pressure  of  debts  unprecedented  in  mag¬ 
nitude,  but  for  a  permanent  reform ,  by  which  our  societies,  the 
Missionary  Union  especially,  shall  return  to  the  one  simple 
work  of  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  pagan  nations,  —  the  work 
which  Christ  himself  lays  upon  us  with  the  utmost  positiveness 
and  solemnity,  and  which  our  fathers  undertook  to  do  in  simple 
faith  at  the  call  of  Adoniram  Judson.  All  needed  worldly  good 
will  follow  the  acceptance  of  that  miracle-working  gospel.  If  I 
were  to  die  this  night,  I  would  fain  speak  this  one  last  word  in 


206  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


the  ear  of  all  the  churches  :  Millions  to  set  Christ  and  him  cru¬ 
cified  before  the  eyes  of  his  lost  ones  in  Asia  and  Africa ,  who 
have  never  heard  the  seraphic  music  of  his  name ;  but  not  a 
nickel  more  for  secular  education  in  native  schools  that  are  not 
chiefly,  if  not  altogether,  self-supporting  ! 

Let  the  Executive  Committee  reduce  the  rate  of  expenditure 
on  our  present  fields  one-third  (not  in  every  field,  but  judi¬ 
ciously),  as  they  can  certainly  do  with  positive  advantage  to 
spirituality,  and  then  let  them  appeal  with  confidence  to  the 
churches  and  to  the  young  men  in  theological  seminaries  for  a 
grand  advance  into  Upper  Burma  and  into  the  heart  of  Africa. 
I  believe  that  there  would  be  such  a  response  as  American  Bap¬ 
tists  never  yet  have  given,  and  that  the  most  glorious  results  of 
the  century  would  follow.  That  is  the  way  to  silence  criticism, 
the  way  to  arouse  latent  enthusiasm,  the  way  to  call  down  the 
Divine  blessing  in  Pentecostal  measures. 


THE  ART  OF  GIVING,  AND  A  COMPREHENSIVE  GRUMBLE. 

One  of  the  most  discouraging  features  of  Christian  life  in  our 
day  is  that  Christians  as  a  whole  give  so  sparingly  ;  another  is 
that  they  give  so  unsystematically  ;  another  equally  discouraging 
feature  is  that  they  give  with  so  little  thought,  discrimination, 
and  prayer.  One  circle  of  ladies  gives  a  set  of  marble-topped 
furniture  to  brighten  the  room  of  a  dear  sister  in  Antipode, 
leaving  the  society  to  pay  the  freight  and  insurance  perhaps. 
Another  sends  a  communion-table  of  black  walnut  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  when  a  home-made  table  of  teak  with  a  snowy 
cloth  upon  it  would  be  more  serviceable  and  appropriate.  A 
Sunday  school  gives  an  organ,  which  is  sure  to  go  to  pieces  in 
the  climate  of  Burma  within  four  or  five  years,  without  inquir¬ 
ing  whether  the  recipient  or  anybody  within  a  hundred  miles 
can  play  upon  it  to  edification.  A  mission  band  contribute,  year 
after  year,  for  the  support  of  “  Yellow  Flower,”  whose  name  is 
the  most  romantic  and  hopeful  thing  about  her.  The  good  mis¬ 
sionary  sister  uses  what  is  needed  for  the  girl’s  support,  and 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


207 


with  the  balance  has  a  necklace  made  from  English  sovereigns, 
by  a  native  jeweller,  against  the  time  of  her  betrothal.  The 
donors  give,  because  they  are  asked  to  give,  a  mere  trifle  each, 
and  because  they  have  a  vague  idea  that  in  some  way  the  giving 
will  benefit  the  heathen  or  the  missionary,  and  please  the  Mas¬ 
ter.  They  do  not  stop  to  inquire  what  becomes  of  their  gifts, 
or  whether  there  is  any  reasonable  probability  that  money 
bestowed  in  that  way  will  bring  the  largest  spiritual  returns. 
They  give,  and  done  with  it.  Such  careless  giving,  unaccompa¬ 
nied  with  prayer  or  forethought,  is  not  blessed  to  the  giver  or 
the  receiver.  It  is  not  Christian  giving.  The  one  definite 
purpose  contemplated  in  the  great  commission  is  not  uppermost 
in  their  thoughts.  And  hence  arises  a  very  large  percentage  of 
the  criminal  waste  which  accompanies  all  our  missionary  work. 
How  not  to  do  things  is  a  great  art. 

Some  persons  are  troubled  that  it  costs  so  much  to  get  a 
dollar  out  to  the  missionary.  It  really  costs  but  ten  or  eleven 
cents  for  exchange  and  all  the  home  charges.  But  how  many 
care  that  with  the  vast  interiors  of  Burma,  China,  Japan,  India, 
and  Africa  wide  open  to  the  heralds  of  the  cross,  a  full  half 
of  the.  diminished  dollar  goes  for  the  support  of  schools  and 
native  laborers  in  fields  which  we  have  occupied  for  thirty, 
fifty,  or  seventy  years,  for  all  of  which  expenditure  no  precept 
or  example  can  be  found  in  the  New  Testament?  Who  cares 
that  executive  officers  systematically  discriminate  against  health¬ 
ful,  self-supporting  schools,  to  nurse  and  bolster  up  artificial, 
sickly  schools  of  their  own  unwise  planting?  I  have  confessed 
already  that  in  Bassein  more  than  half  of  my  own  time  was 
given  to  secular  and  educational  work.  The  one  redeeming 
fact  (if,  indeed,  it  did  redeem)  was,  that  the  schools  were  decid¬ 
edly  religious  in  their  character,  self-supporting,  and  that  the 
wrhole  work  in  that  field  had  reached  the  second  stage  of  devel¬ 
opment.  But  how  many  missionaries  give  an  equal  proportion 
of  their  time  and  energy  to  schools  that  draw  nearly  their  whole 
support  from  funds  which  ought  to  be  sacred  to  evangelization? 
How  many  are  prevented  by  building,  from  going  to  the  jungles 


208  SELF-SUPPORTING  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


at  all  for  a  year  or  more  together?  I  have  a  painful  conviction 
that  secular  and  civilizing  work  is  crowding  more  and  more  into 
the  time  of  missionaries  who  ought  to  be  chiefly  devoted  to 
spiritual  and  religious  work.  The  more  money  you  give  them, 
the  greater  will  be  their  absorption  in  such  barren  labor.  But 
who  in  America  cares?  Don’t  we  give,  and  have  done  with  it? 
May  a  merciful  God  save  us  from  the  paralysis  of  faith  which 
always  accompanies  selfishness,  and  from  spiritual  pride  and  . 
unfruitfulness ! 


BIBLE  TRANSLATION. 

As  these  tracts  profess  to  be  a  series  of  studies  in  mission 
economics,  we  must  refer  briefly  to  the  subject  of  Scripture 
translation  ;  and  there  is  no  place  more  appropriate  for  the  ref¬ 
erence  than  this.  At  the  right  time  and  in  the  right  proportion, 
this  work  is  of  the  first  importance  after  the  oral  proclamation 
of  the  gospel.  The  services  of  the  most  scholarly  and  often 
the  most  experienced  man  and  the  ablest  preacher  in  the  mission 
are  required,  and  are  readily  devoted  for  a  long  term  of  years 
to  this  work.  Long,  perilous,  and  expensive  journeys  are 
taken  for  the  main  object  of  fixing  wisely  upon  the  dialect  to  be 
adopted.  After  the  translation  is  completed,  the  cost  of  cut¬ 
ting  punches,  making  matrices,  type-casting,  printing,  binding, 
storage  (including  protection  against  white  ants),  and  circula¬ 
tion  is  very  great.  It  is  agreed  by  all,  that  the  Gospels  and  a 
few  brief  portions  of  the  Word  should  be  prepared  at  the  ear¬ 
liest  practicable  day  in  every  new  mission,  as  an  indispensable 
auxiliary  to  preaching.  But  at  what  point  should  the  requisite 
time  and  money  be  invested  permanently  in  the  translation  and 
publication  of  the  entire  New  Testament,  or  the  entire  Bible? 
The  question  is  worth  considering  from  a  business  point  of  view. 
If  the  time  and  expenses  of  the  translator  be  taken  into  account, 
as  they  surely  ought  to  be,  it  is  probable  that  the  Missionary 
Union  has  rarely  published  a  first  edition  of  the  New  Testament 
in  a  new  language  which  did  not  actually  cost  the  society 
$20,000  or  over,  in  cash ;  nor  one  of  the  entire  Bible  at  a  cost 
of  less  than  $-10,000. 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


209 


For  an  example,  take  the  history  of  the  Shan  Mission. 
Begun  by  Dr.  Bixby  in  1861,  it  has  just  completed  its  first 
quarter  of  a  century,  at  a  cost  to  the  Missionary  Union,  as  I 
reckon  it,  of  $136,626.18.  Dr.  Cushing,  one  of  the  ablest  lin¬ 
guists  ever  reared  in  our  missions,  went  out  in  1867.  He  has 
completed  the  publication  of  the  New  Testament  in  Shan,  and 
has  done  much  work  on  the  Old.  This,  with  the  necessary 
preparation,  has  been  his  chief  work ;  and  fully  half  of  his 
salary  and  appropriations,  or  considerably  more  than  $20,000, 
might  fairly  be  charged  off  to  this  account.  But  here  arises  the 
question.  Considering  the  very  small  number  of  Christians  to 
read  the  Shan  Scriptures  (thirty-five) ,  is  it  worth  while  to  go 
on  and  spend  $20,000  more  on  the  Old  Testament,  and  then 
proceed  with  commentaries,  a  concordance,  etc,,  etc.,  as  has 
been  done  in  the  Bunnan  department? 

I  would  not  write  a  word  to  wound  the  feelings  of  the 
faithful  brethren  who  are  laboring  for  the  Shans.  They  have 

had  much  to  contend  with.  The  mission  has  been  most  sorely 

%/ 

stricken  by  the  early  death  of  laborers  from  whose  lives  much 
precious  fruit  was  hoped  for.  The  number  of  Shans  hitherto 
accessible  in  Lower  Burma  has  been  very  small  (only  59,723, 
according  to  the  census  of  1881).  The  character  of  the  Shan 
people,  as  described  by  Dr.  Cushing  in  his  report  for  1872,  is 
not  hopeful.  He  writes  :  — 

“The  prevalent  idea  among  the  Shans  is  that  the  foreign  teacher  is 
willing  to  give  worldly  assistance  for  the  sake  of  securing  adhesion  to 
Christianity.  Unfortunately  this  idea  has  been  strengthened  by  some 
who  have  professed  themselves  disciples,  but  were  influenced  by  selfish 
motives  only.  .  .  .  Many  children  would  have  attended  school,  had  we 
allowed  them  eight  annas  a  week  besides  food  and  clothing  ;  but  this 
wasteful  system  does  not  raise  the  value  of  education  in  tlieir  eyes,  and 
panders  to  tlieir  national  love  of  money.” 

Stronger  testimony  to  the  evils  and  dangers  of  the  subsidy 

system  we  could  not  ask  than  this  from  Dr.  Cushing.  It  was 

generally  understood  at  the  time  in  Burma,  that  great  and  last- 
/  * 


210  SEL F-S UPPORTIN G  SCHOOLS  IN  OUR  MISSIONS: 


ing  harm  had  been  done  in  the  early  history  of  the  Shan  mis¬ 
sion,  so  called,  by  the  profuse  expenditure  of  mission  money. 
Now,  when  the  whole  of  Sban-land  is  at  last  wide  open  to  evan¬ 
gelistic  efforts,  is  it  worth  while  to  take  time  and  talent  which 
are  so  much  needed  for  preaching  and  church-building  in  the 
upper  country,  and  to  sink  money  which  is  sorely  needed  for 
other  uses,  merely  to  complete  the  translation  and  publication  of 
the  Old  Testament?  It  would  be  a  monument  to  the  literary 
skill  and  pains- taking  of  the  translator,  indeed,  and  another  leaf 
in  the  laurel  crown  of  our  society ;  but  the  law  of  Christian 
stewardship,  we  believe,  points  in  another  direction. 


CONCLUSION. 

A  mighty  conflagration  is  devouring  square  after  square  in  a 
great  city.  Into  the  hands  of  the  fire-department,  legislators 
and  the  mayor  have  placed  all  the  machinery  and  appliances  for 
subduing  fire  which  the  city  possesses.  Water,  steam,  and 
dynamite,  engines,  hose-carriages,  hydrants,  hooks  and  ladders, 
axes  and  crowbars,  all  are  at  their  disposal,  with  power  to  blow 
up  buildings,  and  impress  the  service  of  men  and  horses.  But 
the  engineers  of  the  department  have  a  theory  of  their  own  ; 
and  amid  the  smoke  and  roar,  the  crash  of  falling  buildings,  and 
the  shrieks  of  the  wounded,  the  bereaved,  the  homeless,  and  the 
dying,  they  coolly  proceed  to  la}^  out  parks  and  plant  trees  and 
shrubbery  at  vast  expense,  with  a  view  to  the  prevention  of 
similar  calamities  in  the  future.  The  Fire-King,  meantime,' 
bears  undisputed  sway.  Property  and  human  lives  melt  away 
before  him,  while  landscape  gardening  occupies  the  chief  atten¬ 
tion  of  the  miscalled  firemen. 

After  the  fire  has  been  subdued,  or  has  burned  itself  out, 
rebuilding  is  indeed  in  order,  and  Baron  Haussmann  may  well 
step  in  and  lay  out  broader  avenues  and  new  parks  to  enhance 
the  beauty,  the  healthfulness,  and  the  security  of  the  new  city 
from  riots  and  from  fire  ;  but  the  cost  should  be  defrayed,  not 
from  the  imperial  treasury,  but  by  municipal  taxation  and  by 


HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  ESCAPED. 


211 


a  special  levy  upon  adjacent  property-holders  for  “  better¬ 
ments.” 

We,  the  redeemed  people  of  Christ,  are  here,  spending  our 
little  day  in  the  midst  of  a  perishing  world.  We  must  shortly 
stand  before  the  Man  of  Calvary,  face  to  face  with  uncounted 
millions  of  pagans  who  are  dying  unwarned,  it  may  be,  through 
our  neglect.  He,  the  great  Head  of  the  Church,  has  laid  upon 
his  blood-bought  bondservants  one  simple  duty,  that  of  preach¬ 
ing  the  gospel  of  his  death  and  resurrection  to  every  creature  ; 
and  we,  to  our  eternal  shame  and  confusion  of  face,  shirk  the 
duty  like  selfish,  ease-loving  cowards. 

Once  more  I  repeat  the  charge.  Instead  of  loyally  taking 
up  this  one,  divinely  imposed  duty,  and  prosecuting  it  with 
undivided  zeal  and  energy,  and  carrying  it  through  to  early 
completion,  we  fritter  away  our  substance  and  our  lives  over 
home  “  duties  ”  and  pleasures,  quieting  our  consciences,  per¬ 
haps,  by  an  occasional  touch  given  with  the  tip  of  our  fingers 
to  that  threefold  burden  of  man’s  imposing.  The  patronage 
system  for  the  support  of  a  native  ministry,  and  the  expensive 
machinery  of  schools  for  the  heathen,  from  the  primary  grade 
up  to  the  college,  are  laid  upon  shoulders  too  narrow  (so  puny 
is  the  strength  of  a  worldly,  a  disobedient  and  unbelieving 
Church)  to  bear  the  Master’s  “  easy  ”  yoke,  with  no  human  ad¬ 
ditions.  So  long  has  this  evil  prevailed,  so  systematically  have 
the  churches  been  educated  to  play  with  these  supererogatory 
burdens,  to  the  partial  if  not  entire  neglect  of  Christ’s  instant, 
all-compelling,  single  command,  that  a  majority  of  the  few  who 
take  any  interest  whatever  in  the  work  of  missions  are  incredu¬ 
lous  as  to  apostolic  methods,  preferring  to  give  for  the  support 
of  schools,  pupils,  and  “cheap”  native  preachers. 

“  In  such  an  hour  as  ye  think  not,  the  Son  of  man  cometh.” 
Shall  we  not  take  the  warning  which  our  Lord  mercifully  left 
for  us  ?  Shall  we  not  forsake  the  new,  and  turn  again  to  the 
good  old  paths  ?  God  grant  it,  for  his  Son’s  sake  ! 


AX  IMMEDIATE  RETURN  TO  OLD-TIME 
ECOXOMY  AXD  TO  THE  SCRIPTURAL  AXD 
COMMOX-SEXSE  PRIXCIPLES  UXAXIMOUSLY 
ADOPTED  BY  TIIE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 
MARCH  11 ,  1878  ( SEE  PAGES  16,  17 ),  IS  ABSO¬ 
LUTELY  ESSEXTIAL  TO  PROSPERITY  IX  OUR 
FOREIGX  MISSIOX  WORK.  LET  THE  VOICE 
OF  EVERY  TRUE  SOX  OF  ISSAC1IAR  BE 
HEARD,  AXD  HIS  VOTE  BE  RECORDED,  FOR 
THIS  REFORM. 

X.  B.  —  LET  ALL  BEAL)  TILE  LETTEBS  WITICTI  FOLLOW , 
ESPECIALLY  THOSE  BY  llEV.  MESSRS.  EBEIBAY  AM) 
NICHOLS. 


APPENDIX. 


(A)  Letter  from  Mr.  Carpenter  to  the  Executive  Committee ,  on  the  Loca¬ 
tion  of  the  Embryonic  Karen  College. 

Rangoon,  Burma,  May  13,  1874. 
Rev.  Dr.  J.  N.  Murdock,  Corresponding  Secretary. 

My  dear  Brother ,  —  Perhaps  a  word  of  apology  is  necessary  for  rais¬ 
ing  the  question  of  the  location  of  the  Karen  college  in  the  third  year 
of  its  existence.  .  As  you  know,  I  returned  to  Burma  under  appoint¬ 
ment  to  the  presidency  of  the  college,  resolved  to  accept  and  make  the 
best  of  its  present  location,  though  it  was  never  satisfactory  to  me. 
At  the  very  inception  of  the  enterprise,  while  in  Bassein,  I  felt 
strongly  that  on  most  accounts  that  station  would  be  preferable  to 
Rangoon  as  its  location  ;  and  I  wrote  to  Dr.  Binney  briefly,  urging  a 
consideration  of  the  facts.  Afterwards  I  took  it  for  granted  that  my 
judgment  had  been  a  little  warped  ;  and  I  returned  here  with  much 
the  same  impressions  in  favor  of  Rangoon  that  I  carried  away  when 
I  left  the  seminary  six  years  ago  to  go  to  Bassein.  The  brief  interval 
of  time  which  has  elapsed  since  my  arrival,  however,  has  been  sufficient 
to  change  my  views  on  the  subject  very  materially.  The  sense  of 
responsibility  for  the  success  and  usefulness  of  this  infant  institution 
never  rested  upon  me  by  night  and  by  day  before.  I  never  was  in  a 
position  to  balance  so  justly,  as  I  think,  the  relative  claims  and  advan¬ 
tages  offered  by  Rangoon  and  other  stations  to  the  college.  Having 
reason  to  believe  that  the  facts  which  should  determine  the  location 
of  the  college  have  never  been  fully  presented  to  the  Executive  Com¬ 
mittee,  I  cannot  think  it  right  to  go  on  and  erect  expensive  buildings 
here,  until  they  have  had  at  least  an  opportunity  for  reconsideration. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  nothing  but  a  stern  sense  of  duty  could 
induce  me  to  take  a  step  which  is  so  decidedly  opposed  to  the  wishes 
and  judgment  of  my  revered  friend,  the  first  president  of  the  college. 

213 


214 


ATTEND  IX. 


I  need  not  refer  to  his  invaluable  labors,  nor  to  the  fact  so  obvious  to 
all,  that  no  one  can  have  more  deeply  at  heart  the  highest  interests  of 
the  Karen  people  than  he.  It  is  my  consolation  to  believe  that  if  he 
and  other  missionaries  knew  the  favorable  conditions  in  Bassein  as 
perfectly  as  I  do.  we  should  all  be  heartily  agreed  in  the  course  to  be 
pursued. 

First,  I  conceive  that  in  addition  to  the  main  work  of  a  college,  viz., 
the  training-up  in  morals  and  intellect  of  a  large  body  of  graduates, 
who  shall  become  the  leaders  and  teachers  of  their  people,  there  is 
another  work  of  great  importance  which  the  college  must  do,  if  it 
would  fulfil  its  mission  worthily ;  I  mean  the  putting-forth  of  those 
indirect  but  powerful  influences  which  tend  to  refine  and  stimulate  the 
entire  community  in  which  the  institution  is  located.  The  Karen  col¬ 
lege  ought  to  be  as  a  light  set  upon  a  hill.  All  unconsciously  to 
themselves,  it  ought  to  be  lifting  up  the  Karens,  and  inciting  them  on 
to  all  good  continually ;  but  to  do  this,  it  must  be  near  to  the  people,  and 
of  the  people. 

The  fact  which  strikes  me  first  and  most  painfully  here  is  that 
we  are  isolated ,  cut  off  from  almost  all  direct  communication  with  the 
Karens,  whether  heathen  or  Christians.  It  is  no  exaggeration,  but 
literal  truth,  that,  in  the  six  weeks  we  have  been  on  this  compound,  I 
have  hardly  seen  six  Karens  who  were  not  either  pupils  or  employees 
of  the  mission.  Nor  is  this  a  place  of  retirement,  such  as  a  scholar 
would  choose  for  study  and  meditation.  We  are  overrun  with  people 
of  other  races  ;  but  the  Karens  to  whom  we  are  sent  as  missionaries, 
not  as  mere  teachers,  are  not  here.  It  is  vastly  different  in  Bassein. 

Secondly,  I  maintain  without  fear  of  controversy,  that  a  prime  condi¬ 
tion  of  permanent  success  to  a  college  in  any  land  is  a  strong  local  at¬ 
tachment  and  support.  In  opposition  to  this,  it  is  held  by  some,  that  the 
Karen  college  and  seminary  ought  to  be  entirely  distinct  from  the  local 
mission  ;  that  for  the  Christians  of  any  station,  Rangoon  or  Bassein 
for  instance,  to  have  a  peculiar  regard  for  those  institutions,  would  be 
detrimental  to  them  ;  that  every  station  should  feel  that  it  has  an 
equal  interest  in  them,  and  that  they  have  equal  demands  upon  it,  etc. 
If  by  this  it  were  meant  merely  that  the  college  should  be  free  to  do 
its  legitimate  work  in  its  own  way,  uncontrolled  either  by  the  station 
missionary  or  his  people,  it  would  obviously  be  a  correct  position  ;  but 
that  is  not  all  that  is  meant.  The  college  must  be  kept  away  from 
the  local  station  altogether,  lest  the  native  Christians  of  that  station 
feel  a  peculiar  regard  for  it,  and  treat  it  in  some  sense  as  their  own. 


APPENDIX. 


215 


This  position,  and  the  fear  that  underlies  it,  I  believe  to  be  utterly 
fallacious.  Because  the  Newton  Centre  Baptist  Church  and  the  Bap¬ 
tist  churches  of  Eastern  Massachusetts  love  Newton  Theological  Insti¬ 
tution  peculiarly,  and  do  more  for  it  than  others,  do  other  Baptists 
love  it  less,  or  send  fewer  students  to  it  ?  Newton  owes  its  origin  to 
the  intelligent,  far-seeing  Baptist  fathers  of  that  vicinity.  All  that 
might  be  taken  from  the  local  love  and  support  would  be  just  so 
much  taken  out  of  the  life  and  usefulness  of  the  institution.  Geo¬ 
graphical  or  political  centres  do  not  often  make  strong  denominational 
schools.  The  soil  where  Baptist  principles  have  taken  the  deepest 
root,  where  those  principles  are  bearing  the  most  fruit,  where  there  is 
the  deepest  desire  for  educational  privileges,  and  the  greatest  readi¬ 
ness  to  sacrifice  in  support  of  an  educational  institution,  —  that  is  the 
soil  in  which  to  plant  a  Baptist  college  or  seminary  in  any  land. 

Now,  in  the  light  of  these  general  principles,  where  is  the  place  for 
you  to  plant  this  college  ? 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  old  spirit  of  alienation  is  passing  away 
from  the  Karen  Christians  of  Rangoon.  The  fact  remains,  however, 
that  they  are  much  fewer  in  numbers,  and  weaker  generally,  than 
the  Karens  of  Bassein.  The  last  report  (1885)  gives  8,382  Karen 
church-members  in  Bassein,  to  4,349  in  Rangoon ;  2,803  pupils  in  the 
Bassein  schools,  to  1,853  in  Rangoon ;  Rs.  41,354  contributed  for  reli¬ 
gious  and  educational  purposes  in  Bassein,  to  Rs.  10,009  in  Rangoon. 
As  to  the  number  of  pupils  likely  to  be  furnished  by  the  two  fields 
respectively,  I  have  consulted  the  catalogues  of  the  Karen  Theologi¬ 
cal  Seminary  for  1868-69,  1870-71,  1872-73,  and  1873-74.  I  have 
been  unable  to  get  them  for  other  years,  but  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  showing  would  differ  materially  from  that  of  these  four  years. 
In  these  catalogues,  I  find  the  names  of  students  from  Bassein,  211  ; 
from  Rangoon,  with  the  seminary  at  their  very  doors,  only  22. 1  The 
graduates  for  the  same  period  were,  from  Bassein,  34 ;  from  Rangoon, 
one.  Nor  are  the  Rangoon  Karens  in  a  position  to  aid  you  mate¬ 
rially  in  the  erection  of  buildings  for  the  college,  however  good  their 
disposition.  ...  I  make  these  comparisons  in  no  invidious  spirit. 
I  merely  do  it  in  order  to  give  you  the  facts  necessary  for  an  intelli¬ 
gent  judgment.  Over  and  above  these  outward  circumstances,  it 
is  just  that  warm  feeling  of  interest,  of  ownership  if  they  will,  which 


i  In  1884  the  seminary  had  20  students  from  Bassein,  and  5  from  Ran¬ 
goon  ;  in  1885,  20  from  Bassein,  to  4  from  Rangoon. 


21G 


ArP  END  IX. 


others  deprecate,  that  was  so  strong  and  pervasive  in  Bassein,  that  I 
miss  here.  In  my  judgment,  the  seminary,  useful  as  it  has  been,  has  * 
not  done  nearly  as  much  for  the  Karen  people  as  a  whole  here,  as  it 
would  have  done  in  Bassein,  had  it  been  thrown  on  the  Christians  of  that 
district  in  a  measure  for  support  from  the  beginning.  I  believe  more  and 
more  firmly  that  the  college  will  never  root  itself,  and  grow  naturally 
and  strongly  here,  as  it  would  do  in  Bassein,  if  it  were  offered  to  them 
on  condition  of  their  adopting  it  as  their  own,  to  be  held  in  trust  for 
all,  they  sharing  the  expense  of  buildings,  and  of  food  for  the  pupils. 
It  is  easy  to  say  that  the  college  is  theirs  now,  and  that  it  is  their 
duty  to  do  as  much  for  it  though  it  be  here.  The  human  nature  of 
the  Bassein  Karen  Christians  is  as  good  as  any  human  nature  in  the 
world;  but  they  will  not  lift  for  the  college,  as  I  propose  to  have 
them  lift,  —  “until  they  see  stars,”  —  while  it  is  here;  nor  will  the 
Christians  of  Rangoon  or  Henthada.  Did  they  do  what  I  believe  they 
could  and  would  do  to  secure  the  location  of  the  college  among  them, 
their  native  brethren  of  other  stations  would  feel  that  they  had  richly 
earned  the  privilege  of  having  it  near  them.  Jealousy  might  be  felt 
in  some  quarters,  but  it  would  not  affect  the  great  body  of  Karen 
Christians.  If  the  college  were  made  what  it  ought  to  be  made,  and 
ivhat  it  can  be  made  more  easily  in  Bassein  than  anywhere  else ,  it  would 
draw  students  like  a  magnet  from  every  quarter  of  the  Karen  country. 

But  the  subject  should  be  discussed  a  little  more  minutely. 

On  the  one  hand,  it  may  be  claimed  for  Rangoon  :  — 

1.  That  the  embryo  is  here,  and  hence  the  presumption  is  in  favor 
of  the  present  location.  This  is  granted. 

2.  The  seminary  is  here.  The  contiguity  and  co-operation  of  the 
two  institutions  is  desirable,  certainly,  but  I  see  no  reason  why  it  is 
more  indispensable  than  in  America.  It  is  certain,  to  my  mind,  that 
connection  with  a  strong  preparatory  school  like  the  one  so  long 
maintained  in  Bassein  without  cost  to  the  American  churches,  would 
do  a  great  deal  more  for  the  college  than  the  seminary  can  do. 

3.  Rangoon  is,  beyond  doubt,  the  most  central  point  and  the  me¬ 
tropolis  of  Burma.  The  mere  fact  that  this  is  the  capital  of  the 
province,  and  an  important  emporium,  as  I  have  intimated  before,  will 
avail  no  more  here  than  similar  advantages  have  availed  for  institu¬ 
tions  at  home.  It  is  true  that  the  pupils  will  be  more  in  contact  with 
the  world;  they  will  lose  more  of  their  Karen  greenness;  they  will  be 
more  likely  to  find  openings  for  a  career  in  the  world  as  clerks  and 
merchants :  but  neither  in  mind  nor  morals  will  they  be  as  likely  to 


APPENDIX. 


217 


improve  here,  as  in  a  quieter  place.  Rangoon  is  more  easy  of  access 
to  all  parts  of  Burma  than  any  other  station.  IIow  much  weight 
this  should  have  as  regards  the  pupils,  can  be  inferred  from  the  cata¬ 
logues  already  quoted.  Henthada,  being  equally  near  to  Basseiu,  may 
be  reckoned  out  of  the  comparison.  For  those  four  years  we  find  a 
total  of  211  names  from  Bassein,  36  from  Henthada,  22  from  Ran¬ 
goon,  and  86  from  all  other  stations.  In  other  words,  by  a  removal 
of  the  seminary  to  Bassein,  211  passages  to  and  fro  would  have  been 
saved,  while  108  would  have  been  lengthened  by  the  distance  between 
the  two  towns,  —  a  saving  on  travelling  expenses  of  nearly  one-half. 
It  is  probable  that  the  relative  proportion  of  pupils  in  the  college 
would  not  vary  greatly  from  the  above  in  a  term  of  years ;  while,  by 
locating  the  college  in  Bassein,  a  still  larger  number  of  pupils  would 
be  likely  to  come  from  the  churches  of  that  district.  In  Rangoon, 
the  college  would  be  more  open  to  the  inspection  of  missionaries 
passing  through  ;  and  this  fact  should  have  due  weight,  though  it 
is  doubtful  whether  the  seminary  profits  much  by  this  circumstance. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  convention,  which  is  attended  by  a 
majority  of  the  missionaries,  would  naturally  meet  at  Bassein  once  in 
eight  or  nine  years,  and  any  who  really  desired  to  see  the  working  of 
the  college  in  the  intervals  could  do  so  quite  easily.  [Three  steamers 
a  week  make  the  inland  trip  to  Bassein  in  thirty  or  thirty-six  hours.] 
The  Mission  Press  is  in  Rangoon,  and,  of  course,  the  facilities  for 
publishing  text-books,  procuring  supplies,  etc.,  for  the  college,  would 
be  somewhat  greater  there.1  These  considerations  should  have  due 
weight,  but  they  should  never  be  allowed  to  overbalance  the  great 
moral  considerations  involved. 

4.  Certain  pecuniary  considerations  hang  on  the  occupation  of  the 
present  compound.  The  adjacent  lot  known  as  “  Shady  Dell  ”  reverts 
to  the  college,  provided  permanent  buildings  are  put  up  here  before 
May,  1875,  and  are  occupied  until  May,  1892.  It  is  intimated  also 
that  a  bequest  has  been  made  on  similar  conditions.  That  these 
generous  provisions  were  made  by  the  sainted  Dr.  Wade  and  others 
from  the  purest  motives,  and,  as  they  deemed,  for  the  highest  good  of 
the  college,  no  one  can  doubt.  It  is  a  fair  question,  however,  whether 
regard  to  the  property  involved,  or  even  for  the  feelings  of  these 

1  Rev.  Mr.  Nichols  has  now  built  up  an  excellent  printing  establish¬ 
ment  in  connection  with  the  Bassein  Institute,  on  the  self-support  princi¬ 
ple,  which  is  capable  of  doing  first-class  work  in  at  least  three  different 
languages. 


218 


APPENDIX. 


devoted  friends  and  servants  of  Christ,  should  constrain  yon  to  fix  the 
only  collegiate  institution  for  the  Karen  people  in  an  undesirable 
position.  Besides,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  propositions  offered  below, 
care  will  be  taken  that  the  college  sustains  no  pecuniary  loss  by  a 
removal  to  Bassein. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  would  bespeak  the  careful  attention  of  the 
Executive  Committee  to  arguments  in  favor  of  transferring  the  col¬ 
lege  at  once,  without  further  loss  of  time,  to  Bassein. 

1.  Moral  Considerations.  —  Bassein,  and  especially  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  the  Sgati  compound  in  Bassein,  is  most  quiet  and  free 
from  the  temptations  which  abound  in  Rangoon.  As  Dr.  Binney 
himself  remarked  the  other  day,  this  city  is  full  of  prostitutes,  liquor, 
and  gambling-shops.  The  road  opposite  the  compound  is  lined  with 
the  stables  and  houses  of  noisy,  quarrelsome,  gharry-wallahs  from 
Madras  and  Bengal.  Intoxicating  liquors  are  hawked  up  and  down 
the  street,  and  I  am  told  on  good  authority  that  pupils  in  the  college 
yielded  repeatedly  to  one  of  these  temptations  last  year. 

2.  The  conditions  in  Bassein  are  as  favorable  as  possible  for  the 
successful  development  of  the  industrial  feature  of  the  college.  There 
is  an  unlimited  demand  in  the  Christian  villages  for  all  the  furniture 
that  the  pupils  can  make  in  the  school  workshop.  There  is  ample 
ground  for  gardens ;  and  all  is  so  screened,  or  apart,  from  the  public 
view,  that  the  boys  are  not  ashamed  to  do  any  kind  of  cooly-work 
which  is  required  of  them.  Here  the  conditions  are  as  unfavorable 
as  possible.  There  is  no  demand  for  furniture  such  as  a  Karen  school 
could  make ;  little  room  for  garden-work ;  and  the  whole  compound  is 
exposed  to  the  gaze  of  a  multitude  of  passers-by.  So  long  as  their 
teachers  work  with  them,  they  will  do  it ;  but  they  would  be  more 
than  human  if  they  relished  manual  labor,  when  the  boys  of  St.  John’s 
College,  across  the  street,  never  soil  their  hands  with  honest  labor. 

3.  The  ground  in  Bassein  is  not  occupied,  as  it  is  in  Rangoon,  by 
great  educational  establishments  of  the  government,  the  S.  P.  G.,  and 
the  Roman  Catholics.  The  government  is  erecting  a  school-building, 
to  cost  Rs.  90,000,  on  one  of  the  finest  sites  in  town.  The  Roman- 
Catholic  bishop  is  putting  up  a  fine  building  for  a  girls’  school  on 
another  site  equally  eligible.  Do  the  best  we  can  with  the  grounds 
and  funds  at  our  disposal  here,  and  we  shall  be  entirely  overshadowed 
by  those  schools,  so  far  as  buildings,  grounds,  and  outward  appliances 
go.  We  ought  to  look  at  the  school,  not  at  its  setting;  at  the  work 
turned  out,  not  at  the  workshop,  I  know.  Some  of  us  can  do  this,  but 


APPENDIX. 


219 


it  is  not  so  easy  for  Karens.  I  also  must  regard  the  proximity  of  the 
S.  P.  G.  “  St.  John’s  College  ”  as  an  objection.  Our  scholars  are 
tempted  to  idleness  and  extravagance  (not  to  speak  of  immorality) 
by  what  they  see  in  their  neighbors. 

4.  Economy. — In  Bassein  you  already  possess,  at  a  mere  nominal 
cost,  a  noble  compound  of  twenty-six  acres,  admirably  adapted  and 
ample  for  the  wants  of  both  college,  station-school,  and  missionaries’ 
residence.  The  new  buildings,  planned  by  myself,  are  so  arranged 
that  a  natural  and  symmetrical  division  can  be  made.  The  com¬ 
pound  now  occupied  by  the  college  has  a  considerable  market  value. 
Whether  it  would  bring  all  that  it  cost,  or  not,  I  have  not  the  means 
of  knowing. 

In  order  that  the  question  of  removal  may  be  considered  on  its 
own  merits,  I  hereby  pledge  myself  to  pay  over  to  the  endowment  or 
building  fund  of  the  college  Rs.  5,500  (the  cost  of  “  Shady  Dell  ”) 
within  three  months  after  the  removal  of  the  institution  to  Bassein. 
This  is  on  the  understanding  that  the  corps  of  teachers  be  promptly 
filled,  as  agreed  to  before  I  left  America. 

I  would  make,  as  the  conditions  of  removal,  that  we  have  carte- 
blanche  from  the  Karens,  and  all  concerned,  to  take  such  part  of  the 
compound  and  existing  buildings  for  the  use  of  the  college  as  seem 
to  us  best  adapted  for  our  purpose;  that  the  Karens  meet  one-half  of 
the  expense  of  new  buildings,  up  to  Rs.  20,000,  the  friends  of  missions 
in  America  to  meet  the  other  half;  and  that  they  pledge  themselves 
to  furnish  sufficient  rice  for  the  consumption  of  the  pupils  in  the 
college,  year  by  year,  as  they  have  always  done  hitherto  for  their 
own  high  school.  I  have  not  consulted  Rev.  Mr.  Ilopkinson,  nor  the 
Karens,  on  this  subject  as  yet ;  but  I  know  those  twenty-five  ordained 
pastors,  and  those  sixty  churches,  and  they  know  me,  and  I  firmly 
believe  that  they  would  do  all  that  I  have  indicated,  within  a  reason¬ 
able  time,  and  that  God  would  bless  them  richly  in  the  doing  of  it. 

Besides  these  considerations,  the  cost  of  provisions,  such  as  the 
pupils  require,  I  find  to  be  from  thirty  to  fifty  per  cent  more  in  Ran¬ 
goon  than  in  Bassein.  This  difference  must  increase  the  expenses  of 
the  college  hundreds  of  rupees  yearly.  Again,  by  a  special  provision 
of  government,  the  mission,  as  well  as  school  buildings,1  on  that 

1  Since  this  was  written,  three  or  four  houses  occupied  by  Karen  families, 
and  the  land  purchased  by  the  mission  outside  of  the  original  grant  of  ten 
acres,  have  been  taxed  ;  but  the  whole  amount  is  trifling  compared  with 
the  heavy  assessments  on  the  Rangoon  school  property. 


220 


APPENDIX 


compound  are  exempt  from  taxation,  while  here  the  taxes  are  heavy. 
All  this  is  in  addition  to  the  saving  to  the  pupils  in  travelling  ex¬ 
penses,  dress,  and  pocket-money,  as  indicated  above.  Greater  than 
all  other  economical  considerations,  if  the  college  wTere  transferred  to 
Bassein,  the  necessity  of  creating  a  distinct  preparatory  department  would 
he  obviated.  Mr.  Smith  of  Identhada,  and  perhaps  other  missionaries, 
is  very  strongly  opposed  to  our  having  any  preparatory  department 
at  all,  fearing  that  it  will  interfere  with  the  station-schools.  But  if 
an  academical  department  is  a  necessity  at  Hamilton,  and  if  Water- 
ville  Academy  and  Lyons  Preparatory  School  at  Providence  are  doing 
an  essential  service  for  the  colleges  to  which  they  are  affiliated,  such  a 
department  is  still  more  necessary  here  in  Burma.  Nowr,  the  normal 
school  in  Bassein  has  long  been  placed  at  the  head  of  all  schools  of 
its  class  in  Burma  by  the  educational  officers  of  government.  Why 
should  not  that  self-sustaining  school  be  the  germ  out  of  which  the 
college  should  grow  ?  Place  that  school  under  the  direction  of  the 
president  and  faculty  of  the  college,  and  it  would  become  all  that  we 
should  need.  The  expense  in  labor  and  money  of  creating  a  new 
preparatory  school,  which  wre  are  trying  to  do  at  great  disadvantage 
here,  would  all  be  saved;  the  objections  felt  by  Mr.  Smith  and  others 
would  be  removed;  and  all  the  benefits  of  such  a  department  in  the 
college  W'Ould  be  fully  secured. 

5.  Bassein  is  the  most  favorable  location  in  Burma  for  a  female 
department.  I  am  convinced  that  no  amount  of  argument  or  per¬ 
suasion  wrould  ever  induce  Karen  parents  to  send  any  considerable 
number  of  their  daughters  to  the  college  in  its  present  location.  The 
number  of  young  women  in  Bassein  district,  w  ho  are  able  and  anxious 
to  pursue  advanced  studies,  is  large-,  and  the  compound  and  its  sur¬ 
roundings  are  all  that  any  Karen  parent  or  missionary  could  desire. 

To  conclude  this  long  paper,  I  would  say  again  that  the  reflex 
influences  of  the  college  on  your  most  advanced  mission-field  wrould 
be  incalculable.  In  Bassein  alone,  do  we  see  a  positive  and  strong 
demand  for  such  an  institution.  It  is  wanted  there.  Here  it  is  toler¬ 
ated,  or  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  makes  my  heart  leap  to 
think  of  the  sympathy,  the  active  aid,  the  sacrifices,  which  that  dear 
people  wrould  give  to  the  college,  and  also  to  think  of  the  blessings 
which  W'Ould  come  to  them,  and  to  the  heathen  of  that  great  district, 
if  the  transfer  were  made  in  the  manner  indicated.  If  you  locate  the 
college  there,  it  will  grow  naturally  out  of  the  largest  and  best  system 
of  schools  to  be  found  anywhere  in  your  missions.  The  work  will  be 


APPENDIX. 


221 


done  in  the  simplest  and  most  economical  way;  and  I  firmly  believe 
that  the  college  will  take  deep  root  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and 
long  abide  in  strength  to  bless  the  land  with  its  fruitage. 

The  decision  of  the  location  rightfully  rests  with  you ;  and  I  shall 
loyally  abide  by  it,  whatever  it  may  be.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  right 
for  me  to  remind  the  Committee  that  I  only  accepted  the  honor  of 
this  appointment,  in  the  hope  that  I  could  here  do  more  for  the  high¬ 
est  interests  of  the  Karens  than  elsewhere.  With  my  present  light, 
it  seems  to  me  that  I  could  do  more  to  secure  and  advance  those 
interests,  —  I  mean  the  interests  of  higher  education  for  the  whole  Karen 
people ,  —  in  Bassein,  icitliout  the  college  even,  than  I  can  hope  to  do  here 
at  the  head  of  the  college.1 

I  have  sent  a  copy  of  this  communication  to  Dr.  Binney  and  the 
other  Karen  missionaries,  with  the  request  that  they  will  forward 
their  views  on  this  subject,  whether  adverse  or  otherwise,  directly  to 
you.  While  I  know  that  several  of  the  brethren  have  very  strong 
objections  to  the  present  location  of  the  college,  I  have  no  assurance 
that  one  of  them  will  support  the  views  of  this  paper.  If  they  are 
just  and  pleasing  to  the  Master,  whom  I  am  trying  to  serve  in  this 
matter,  it  is  sufficient  for  me. 

To  save  time,  which  is  more  than  money  in  the  present  instance, 
please  telegraph  at  my  expense,  as  soon  as  the  Committee  come  to 
a  decision  :  either  “  Build  at  once,”  in  which  case  I  shall  understand 
that  you  deem  a  removal  unwise,  and  wish  me  to  go  on  with  the  build¬ 
ing  here,  as  if  this  subject  had  not  been  broached ;  or  “  Canvass 
Bassein,”  which  would  imply  that  you  are  disposed  to  consider  the 
subject  favorably,  if  the  conditions  mentioned  should  be  agreed  to  by 
the  Karen  missionaries  and  pastors  of  that  district. 

If  your  decision  is  favorable  to  this  proposition,  I  should  wish  to 
be  placed  in  charge  of  the  entire  educational  work  on  the  Sgau  com¬ 
pound  in  Bassein.  Mr.  Hopkinson  would  find  work  enough  for  three 
men  among  the  churches  and  jungle  schools. 

May  I  trouble  you  to  send  a  copy  of  this  paper  to  Professor 
Buggies  with  a  kind  word  ?  So  good  and  true  a  friend  of  the  college 
should  know  the  exact  truth  in  a  matter  of  this  importance. 

1  We  find  here  a  “  college  ”  which  is  in  no  respect  farther  advanced 
than  the  school  we  left  in  Bassein.  The  pupils  are  certainly  not  more 
promising,  and  they  are  hardly  one-third  as  numerous,  while  the  large  and 
perennial  supply  of  new  pupils  eagerly  pressing  for  admission  seems 
wholly  wanting. 


222 


APPENDIX. 


With  earnest  prayers  that  the  Committee  may  receive  wisdom  to 
decide  this  question,  not  according  to  my  poor  wish,  but  according 
to  the  perfect  will  of  our  glorious  Lord, 

I  remain  as  ever,  your  fellow-servant  and  brother  in  Christ, 

C.  H.  CARPENTER, 
President  of  ilie  Karen  Baptist  College. 

(B)  Extracts  from  a  printed  Letter  of  Rev.  C.  A.  Nichols  Ip  Rev. 

D.  A.  W.  Smith ,  D.D.,  dated  Bassein,  Aug.  11,  1885. 

.  .  .  “Yes;  lain  in  favor  of  their  contributing  the  anna  per  mem¬ 
ber,  and  more  besides,  in  that  the  condition  of  the  home  treasury  now 
affords  an  excellent  opportunity  to  open  up  the  way  to  the  Karens 
doing  what  they  long  since  should  have  done,  —  support  their  own 
theological  seminary  in  toto.  Moreover,  I  thoroughly  believe  that 
they  will  do  it,  of  course  excepting  the  support  of  their  American 
president.  .  .  .  When  I  was  in  Rangoon  last  dry  season,  no  one  more 
sincerely  hoped  than  I,  that  the  experiment  of  changing  the  dormito¬ 
ries  to  the  other  side  of  the  compound  [an  experiment  which  cost  the 
Union  several  hundred  dollars.  —  Ed.]  would  succeed  in  ridding  us  of 
that  plague.  But  now  it  seems  it  has  not;  and  it  continues  to  be 
positively  dangerous  for  a  boy  to  go  to  the  seminary  for  a  course  of 
study  with  that  plague  impending  over  him.  Mauket,  who  was  one 
of  our  brightest  boys,  and  who  has  now  been  at  home  about  two 
years,  still  suffers  from  the  effects  of  his  short  stay  in  the  seminary ; 
and  when  we  were  in  Rangoon  last  October,  he  staid  on  the  compound 
one  night  only,  when  an  attack  immediately  assailed  him,  obliging 
him  to  return  home  by  the  next  steamer.  Others,  one  after  another, 
have  had  the  same  experience.1  Our  Bassein  young  men  have  braved 
it  nobly ;  some  of  them  desiring  to  return  to  their  studies,  while  as  yet 
it  would  have  been  a  great  risk  to  have  allowed  them  to  do  so.  Hence 
a  change  somewhere  seems  called  for;  and  now  that  we  propose  a 
change  of  base  as  to  the  support  of  the  institution,  in  view  of  the 
debt  at  home,  and  that  a  radical  one,  nothing  less  than  full  support, 
it  seems  a  good  opportunity  to  settle,  once  for  all,  the  question  of  loca¬ 
tion.  ...  A  location  not  central  and  connected  with  a  station,  but 


1  For  eight  or  nine  years  this  mysterious  disease  has  dogged  the  semi¬ 
nary  in  its  present  location  persistently,  and  the  lives  of  one  of  its  most 
promising  teachers  and  perhaps  a  score  of  its  pupils  have  been  sacrificed. 
It  docs  not  seem  to  attack  Europeans.  —  Editor. 


APPENDIX. 


223 


supported  by  the  people  themselves,  I  should  consider  incomparably 
preferable  to  a  central  location  which  was  disconnected  from  a  sta¬ 
tion,  should  its  centrality  and  its  isolation  necessitate  its  being  wholly 
or  in  part  supported  by  American  money.  In  such  a  case,  I  would  say, 
by  all  means  remove  to  Bassein  at  once. 

“  Notwithstanding  the  heavy  load  which  it  would  involve  for  the 
Karen  people  to  enter  alone  upon  the  full  support  of  the  seminary,  in 
its  present  location,  unaided  by  an  endowment,  yet,  if  it  were  not  for 
beri  beri ,  I  should  consider  that  the  Karen  missionaries  were  bound  to 
urge  their  native  brethren  to  take  upon  themselves  this  responsibility 
immediately,  in  view  of  the  financial  straits  at  home.  But  .  .  .  the 
persistence  of  the  beri  beri  makes  it  imperative  that  a  change  should 
be  made,  whether  we  desire  it  or  not.  ...  I  know  that  it  will  be 
hard  to  give  up  all  of  the  pleasant  and  convenient  features  of  the 
present  location.  .  .  .  Therefore,  I  think  it  best  ...  to  ask  them 
to  take  upon  themselves  the  full  support  of  the  seminary,  excepting 
that  of  its  American  head.  This  we  cannot  reasonably  do,  until  we 
have  done  all  we  can  to  make  it  practicable  for  them  so  to  do ;  i.e.,  by 
giving  the  seminary  a  healthful  location,  and  securing  for  it  an  endow¬ 
ment,  by  means  of  funds  which  can  be  made  available  by  the  proceeds 
of  what  may  easily  be  saved  by  either  of  the  three  changes  suggested, 
viz.  :  — 

“  (1)  Should  any  invitation  be  given  whereby  a  favorable  location 
in  Rangoon  could  be  obtained,  accept  that ;  or, 

“  (2)  Buy  some  place  easy  of  access  by  railroad,  say  at  Insein, 
where  property  is  cheap,  and  the  climate  healthful;  or, 

“  (3)  Accept  the  standing  offer  of  the  Bassein  brethren.” 


(C)  Extracts  from  an  Open  Letter  to  the  Faculty  and  Trustees  of  the 
Karen  Theological  Seminary ,  by  Rev.  J.  A .  Freiday,  dated  Rangoon , 
Sept.  2,  1885. 

“  The  president  of  the  seminary,  in  a  recent  circular  letter  addressed 
to  Mr.  Nichols,  questions  whether  the  Karens  ought  now  to  assume, 
and  expresses  the  opinion  that  they  cannot  at  once  assume,  the  entire 
support  of  the  seminary,  apart  from  the  salary  of  its  president.  .  .  . 
The  annual  amount  required  to  attain  the  desirable  result  advocated 
by  Mr.  Nichols  is  stated  by  Dr  Smith  as  about  Rs.  3,600.  An  annual 
gift,  therefore,  of  less  than  three  annas  (seven  or  eight  cents)  per 
member  for  20,000  Karens,  is  all  that  is  required  to  at  once  attain  the 


224 


APPENDIX. 


excellent  object  proposed,  even  without  the  help  of  any  endowment, 
and  supposing  the  beri  beri  objection  removed,  and  the  seminary  con¬ 
tinued  in  its  present  location.  .  .  .  Many  reasons  at  once  suggest 
themselves  why  American  Christians  should  not  be  taxed  with  the 
seminary’s  support  one  moment  after  the  Karens  are  able  and  willing 
to  assume  that  support  themselves.  It  is  a  task  of  some  delicacy, 
and  a  labor  of  greatly  increased  difficulty,  to  press  the  immediate 
attainment  of  the  excellent  object  advocated,  ‘  with  the  true  Bassein 
ring,’  by  Mr.  Nichols,  in  opposition  to  the  frankly  expressed  opinion 
of  the  seminary’s  president  that  the  object  proposed  is  beyond  the 
present  obligations  antTability  of  the  Karens.  .  .  . 

“  If  any  apology  be  needed,  I  may  say  that  my  own  interest  in  the 
matter  has  been  aroused  chiefly  by  its  relations  as  a  needed  and  possi¬ 
ble  application  of  the  principle  of  self-support  to  new  missions,  and 
by  the  terms  of  what  is  known  as  ‘the  Bassein  offer  to  the  seminary.’ 
The  time  has  certainly  come  for  every  possible  application  of  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  self-support  to  our  Burma  missions;  and  it  is  vitally  important 
that  the  example  and  practice  of  our  only  theological  school,  the 
teacher  of  the  future  leaders  of  our  Karen  churches,  should  be  on  the 
right  side  in  this  important  matter. 

“  The  terms  of  the  Bassein  offer  are  fully  stated  in  Mr.  Carpenter’s 
Self-Support  Illustrated,  and  in  his  later  Study  in  Mission 
Finance  (‘Tract  No.  1’),  in  which  he  declares  that  the  acceptance 
of  the  Bassein  offer  will  make  it  entirely  feasible  to  relieve  the  Union 
henceforth  from  all  charges  for  Karen  theological  instruction.  Con¬ 
ceding  that  the  acceptance  of  this  offer  will  accomplish  this  most 
desirable  result,  the  following  objections  are  yet  offered  to  its  accept¬ 
ance  :  — 

“  1.  Rangoon,  as  the  centre  of  the  province,  is  the  best  possible  location 
for  the  Seminary.  To  this  it  is  answered,  that  Bassein  with  a  generous 
and  vigorous  constituency  that  wants  the  Seminary,  and  will  at  once 
do  so  much  for  it,  that,  with  an  endowment  made  possible  by  its  pres¬ 
ent  property,  it  will  at  once  become  self-supporting,  is  better  than  a 
central  location  with  almost  total  dependence  on  American  support ; 
that  ‘the  present  compound  has  been  infected  for  eight  years  with  a 
mysterious  and  deadly  disease  ;  ’  that,  as  there  are  no  Karens  in  the 
cities,  the  students  are  training  for  exclusively  jungle  service,  and  it 
is  therefore  wiser  and  cheaper  to  train  them  in  a  jungle  town,  at  the 
headquarters  of  a  strong  Karen  mission  in  full  sympathy  with  the 
Seminary,  than  in  a  great  city  isolated  from  every  Karen  community, 


APPENDIX. 


225 


and  filled  with  temptations ;  that  Bassein  is  the  place  of  all  others 
for  a  successful  preparatory  vernacular  and  English  feeder  for  the 
Seminary ;  and  that  it  is  far  better  for  the  present  self-respect  and 
future  usefulness  of  the  students  themselves,  and  for  the  proper 
spiritual  development  of  the  Karens,  that  the  Seminary  become  a 
child  of  the  Karens  in  any  place,  than  that  it  continue  a  child  of 
America  in  Rangoon. 


“  2.  A  chapel  with  school  and  recitation  rooms ,  over  and  above  what  the 
Bassein  Karens  offer ,  ivould  be  required  to  preserve  the  present  efficiency 
of  the  Seminary' s  instructors.  If  the  Bassein  Karens  could  not  them¬ 
selves  thus  enlarge  their  offer,  the  necessary  building  could  be  secured 
by  the  sale  of  part  of  the  Seminary’s  present  property,  and  enough  of 
it  still  be  left  to  secure  or  constitute  a  handsome  endowment. 

“  3.  The  efficiency  of  the  Seminary  would  be  lessened  by  its  removal  to 
Bassein.  With  precisely  the  same  teachers,  a  helpful  endowment,  a 
suitable  equipment,  a  location  at  the  headquarters  of  a  strong  Karen 
mission  doing  it  good  and  receiving  good  from  it,  its  autonomy  guar¬ 
anteed,  its  efficiency  would  certainly  be  greater  than  in  its  present 
isolation  from  every  Karen  community,  with  no  endowment,  no  more 
useful  equipment,  and  only  the  same  teachers. 

“4.  In  Bassein  the  Seminary  would  inevitably  cease  to  be  a  yeneral 
Karen  institution ;  for ,  once  located  there ,  the  Bassein  Karens  ivould  either 
control  it  in  every  particular ,  or  abandon  it.  The  refusal  of  the  Bassein 
Karens  to  support  the  Convention  is  mentioned  as  a  justification  of 
this  fear.  There  is  here  no  necessary  insinuation  of  bad  faith  in  the 
Bassein  offer,  nor  of  distrust  of  Bassein  Karens,  but  only  a  broad 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  Karens  like  to  have  their  own  way ;  but 
the  autonomy  of  the  Seminary  being  guaranteed  in  the  beginning,  the 
faculty  and  trustees  with  their  Bassein  supporters,  aided  by  the  grace 
of  God,  may  be  trusted  to  continue  that  autonomy,  and  to  preserve 
the  general  character  of  the  school.  The  course  of  the  Bassein  Karens 
towards  the  Convention  does  not  justify  any  fear  for  the  Seminary; 
for  others,  as  well  as  Bassein  Karens,  doubt  the  efficiency  of  the  Con¬ 
vention,  while  all  concede  the  need  and  efficiency  of  the  Seminary. 

“  5.  The  missionaries  of  other  stations  would  not  support  the  Seminary 
in  Bassein.  This  is  rather  a  humiliating  confession  that  missionaries, 
as  well  as  Karens,  like  to  have  their  own  way.  But  a  good  thing  is 
bound  to  go  for  what  it  is  worth  in  the  end,  and  the  Seminary’s  sup¬ 
port,  wherever  located,  will  depend  on  its  work ;  and  the  missionaries 
will  support  it,  wherever  located,  only  so  far  and  so  long  as  they  are 


226 


APPENDIX. 


satisfied  that  the  Seminary  will  train  their  students  more  efficiently 
than  they  themselves  can  train  them  in  the  home  station. 

“6.  The  presence  of  so  many  attractive  girls  in  Bassein  icould  imperil 
the  habits  of  study,  the  affections,  and  ( possibly )  the  morals  of  the  students. 
The  dangers  to  the  students’  morals  and  habits  of  study  are  much 
greater  in  their  present  isolation  and  freedom  from  restraints  in  a 
great,  wicked  city.  The  influence  of  so  many  educated  girls  would 
be  refining,  and  the  girls  themselves  might  furnish  in  many  cases  a 
better  quality  of  wives  than  the  students  now  get.  A  few  students 
might  be  lost  to  their  own  stations  by  marriage  and  settlement  in  the 
Bassein  district;  but  they  would  not  be  lost  to  the  cause,  and  such 
intermarriages  would  prove  an  efficient  means  of  breaking  up  present 
antipathies  between  Karens  of  the  different  stations.  [I  am  not  aware 
that  there  have  ever  been  such  antipathies.  —  C.  H.  C.] 

“7.  The  past  positions  of  some  Karen  missionaries  with  respect  to  this 
offer  would  require  its  continued  rejection.  Many  new  missionaries 
have  entered  the  Karen  work  since  an  expression  was  partially 
obtained  on  the  subject,  and  its  reconsideration  might  now  show  a 
prevailing  sentiment  for  its  acceptance.  Personal  feelings  and  com¬ 
forts  should  not  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  Seminary’s 
greater  usefulness.  .  .  . 

“  I  have  no  authority  to  speak  for  Mr.  Brayton,  but  in  conversa¬ 
tion  with  him  on  this  subject  he  has  expressed  in  the  strongest 
language  his  conviction  that  the  interests  of  the  Karens  themselves 
require  that  the  Seminary  now  be  made  self-supporting  ;  and  he  has 
besides  expressed  the  hope,  that,  before  another  forty  years  shall  have 
passed,  all  its  instructors  will  be  Karens,  and  nothing  whatever  be 
drawn  from  America  for  its  support,  save  Christian  love  and  sym¬ 
pathy.  ...  It  is  neither  necessary  nor  wise  that  the  Seminary’s 
equipment  be  greatly  superior  to  that  of  the  stations  from  which  the 
students  come.  An  extravagant  equipment  and  a  lavish  provision  for 
the  students  will  not  only  give  them  wrong  ideas  of  American  wealth, 
but  have  a  certain  tendency  to  put  them  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
humble  surroundings  and  life  from  which  they  come,  and  to  which 
they  must  return,  and  in  which  they  must  enthusiastically,  self- 
sacrificingly,  and  humbly  spend  their  lives,  to  be  the  kind  of  leaders 
needed  by  a  humble  jungle  people. 

“  I  estimate  the  value  of  the  total  Seminary  property  at  Us.  50,000 
[this  was  written  before  there  was  any  prospect  of  the  annexation  of 
Upper  Burma.  —  Ed].  The  first  time  I  asked  Dr.  Smith  for  his  esti- 


APPENDIX . 


227 


mate,  he  said  Rs.  100,000.  ...  In  any  case,  none  of  the  plans  sug¬ 
gested  would  force  a  sale.  Indeed,  if  the  Bassein  offer  were  accepted, 
it  might  be  best  not  to  sell  at  all,  but  rather  to  let  the  present  proper¬ 
ty  constitute  the  Seminary’s  endowment.  The  ‘  Warren  House’  will 
rent  for  Rs.  100;  the  Smith  House  for  Rs.  150;  and  not  very  expen¬ 
sive  alterations  would  convert  the  chapel  into  another  dwelling  which 
would  rent  for  a  further  Rs.  100,  —  or  a  total  of  Rs.  350  per  month; 
which  is  itself  not  only  a  handsome  interest  on  Rs.  50,000,  but  Rs.  50 
a  month  more  than  the  sum  required  to  secure  the  Seminary’s  imme¬ 
diate  self-support.  There  would  be  left,  besides,  all  the  materials  of 
unsalable  native  houses,  which  in  case  of  not  distant  removal  could 
be  moved  and  used  again  ;  and  the  sale  of  the  building  sites  thus 
made  vacant  would  produce  a  further  substantial  revenue  ;  and  the  ac¬ 
tual  occupation  of  such  sites  ...  by  residences  for  Europeans  would 
increase  the  value  of  the  reserved  houses  and  property.  Nearly  the 
whole  of  this  amount  would  be  available,  were  the  Seminary  removed 
to  Bassein. 

“  But  to  every  plan  to  secure  the  Seminary’s  greater  efficiency  and 
self-support,  but  involving  a  removal  from  its  present  location,  it  is 
objected :  — 

1.  The  heri  beri  need  not  be  considered  a  reason  for  removal ;  and  re¬ 
moval  would  not  help  the  matter,  for  the  disease  has  appeared  nearly  every¬ 
where  in  Burma.  Dr.  Smith,  however,  concedes  that  several  cases  last 
January  did  not  yield  to  the  best  treatment;  and  the  disease  has  not 
appeared  in  the  places  to  which  a  removal  is  possible,  with  any  such 
virulence  or  frequency  as  on  the  Seminary  compound.  The  Bassein 
Sgau  compound  has  been  quite  free  from  it. 

“2.  Any  change  would  impeach  the  wisdom  of  those  who  located  the 
Seminary  where  it  now  is.  A  change  for  the  better  would  rather  exalt 
that  wisdom  which  secured  a  site  so  increasingly  valuable  as  to  earn 
for  the  Seminary  a  handsome  endowment. 

“  3.  The  person  who  gave  the  purchase-money  for  the  present  property 
gave  it  to  locate  the  Seminary  where  it  now  is.  The  object  of  the  donor 
was  not  to  injure,  but  to  help,  the  Seminary ;  and  whenever  that  object 
can  be  furthered  by  its  removal,  the  purpose  of  the  donor  requires  the 
removal  to  be  made.  .  .  . 

“5.  Any  change  from  its  present  location  would  be  to  pluck  up  by  the 
roots  and  throw  away  the  labors  of  forty  years  [only  twenty-one.  —  Ed]. 
Though  the  Seminary  be  forty  years  old,  in  this  matter  of  self-support 
it  has  no  roots  in  Karen  soil ;  and  each  of  the  plans  suggested  not 


228 


APPENDIX. 


only  conserves  the  labors  of  forty  years,  but,  by  driving  the  roots  of 
the  Seminary  into  Karen  soil,  gives  desirable  assurance  of  its  greater 
future  usefulness. 

“6.  An  endowment  would  not  stimulate ,  but  repress ,  Karen  support. 
What  the  Seminary  can  do  for  itself  it  should  do,  and  the  Karens  can 
then  be  best  appealed  to  for  what  may  yet  be  needed.  There  is  no 
good  reason  to  believe  that  a  result  so  exceptional  would  follow 
from  endowment. 

“7.  The  object  proposed  can  be  attained  at  some  indejinite  time  in  the 
future  by  the  enlargement  of  the  one-anna  movement  without  taking  the  risks 
and  trouble  of  removal.  The  object  proposed  is  secondary  to  the  effi¬ 
ciency  of  the  Seminary ;  and  while  its  present  isolation  from  every 
Karen  community  may  be  favorable  to  its  independence,  its  present 
independence  is  dependent  on  a  generous  and  continuous  supply  of 
American  money,  and  unfavorable  alike  to  the  higher  self-respect  and 
the  greatest  spiritual  efficiency  of  the  students  themselves,  which  re¬ 
quire  that  men  who  are  to  be  the  future  spiritual  leaders  of  the  Karens 
be  supported,  so  far  as  possible,  by  Karens,  and  engaged  in  some  light 
form  of  religious  work  for  Karens,  especially  for  the  unconverted, 
even  while  pursuing  their  studies.  The  one-anna  collection  is  the 
only  effort  being  made  in  the  direction  of  self-support;  and  the  appli¬ 
cation  of  the  income  of  that  movement,  not  to  reduce  home  drafts,  but 
to  the  enlargement  of  the  present  superior  equipment  of  the  Seminary, 
when  considered  with  reference  to  the  greater  need  for  a  better  equip¬ 
ment  of  their  own  on  the  part  of  the  contributing  stations,  and  in  the 
light  of  the  needs  of  unreached  heathen  everywhere  about  us,  not 
only  wears  an  unpleasant  appearance  of  selfishness,  but  the  amount  of 
the  income  itself  affords  no  hope  whatever  of  complete  self-support  by 
that  process.  .  .  . 

“  I  do  not  believe  there  will  be  any  strong  and  abiding  impetus  in 
the  direction  of  new  missions  in  Burma,  until  the  older  and  richer 
missions  find  a  way  to  release  more  American  money  for  that  purpose; 
and  if  the  Karen  Theological  Seminary,  the  teacher  of  our  future 
church  leaders,  itself  now  forty  years  old,  its  own  graduates,  according 
to  Dr.  Smith,  ‘the  brain  and  the  sinew  of  the  strongest  churches  in 
every  station,’  and  therefore  in  the  best  possible  positions  to  render  it 
needed  help,  and,  as  the  only  general  theological  school,  having  ail 
exclusive  claim  on  a  constituency  of  twenty  thousand  Karens,  can¬ 
not  take  the  lead,  I  do  not  know  where  we  may  look  for  a  leader.” 


APPENDIX. 


229 


(D)  Extract  from  a  Letter  of  Dr.  Francis  Mason  to  Secretary  Peck , 

dated  Toungoo ,  Oct.  30,  1857. 

“  I  hope  to  see  the  normal  school  conducted  without  using  the  ap¬ 
propriation  you  have  made  [Rs.  220  only !].  The  natives  will  assume 
the  responsibility  of  supporting  the  young  men,  as  they  have  of  the 
girls.  The  site  of  the  young  men’s  schoolhouse  has  already  been 
selected,  and  some  of  the  people  are  getting  down  timber  for  the 
building.  , 

“  I  am  as  anxious  that  the  natives  should  support  their  normal 
schools,  as  I  am  that  they  should  support  their  village  schools.  When 
they  have  to  support  their  pupils,  it  will  have  a  good  effect  in  tending 
to  prevent  the  less  advanced  scholars  from  coming  to  the  city,  who  can 
just  as  well  pursue  their  studies  in  the  jungle.  It  is  very  undesirable, 
in  many  respects,  to  have  Karens  study  in  the  large  towns.  It  is  fre¬ 
quently  ruinous  to  their  morals.  Not  but  that  the  teachers  do  all  that 
can  be  done  to  prevent  such  calamities;  but  it  is  the  result  of  the 
circumstances  in  which  they  are  placed,  the  temptations  to  which  they 
are  exposed,  and  which  are  beyond  the  control  of  the  missionaries. 

“  Then,  at  the  best,  they  acquire  expensive  habits,  and  habits  of 
self-indulgence,  in  the  cities,  which  unfit  them  to  live  in  the  jungles. 
They  learn  to  eat  bread  and  butter,  to  drink  tea  and  eat  sugar.  I 
have  constant  applications  for  tea,  a  very  dear  article  here,  from 
assistants  that  have  been  educated  in  the  towns ;  and  a  Karen  letter 
before  me  asks  an  acquaintance  in  Maulma  into  buy  him  a  teapot. 
Not  long  ago  a  wild  Karen  came  to  me  to  borrow  a  rupee,  that  he 
might  have  ‘one  meal  of  sweet  salt,’  as  they  denominate  sugar. 
They  will  eat  it  by  handfuls,  when  obtainable.  Clothing,  too,  unsuit¬ 
able  for  Karens,  is  constantly  coveted. 

“  I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that  we  must  look  for  our  assistants 
to  be  raised  up  from  the  churches  on  the  ground  ;  and  the  more  I  see 
of  the  Karens,  and  the  measures  pursued  for  their  instruction,  the 
more  I  am  impressed  with  the  paramount  importance  of  educating 
them  to  the  greatest  practicable  extent  in  their  own  villages.  The 
few  that  come  to  the  cities  should  stay  in  them  as  short  a  time  as 
possible. 

“  This  effort  to  have  the  Karens  of  Toungoo  carry  forward  all  their 
educational  operations,  short  of  the  theological  seminary,  as  they  do 
the  preaching,  ...  is  now  an  experiment;  [but]  no  fears  are  enter¬ 
tained  of  ultimate  success,  if  there  be  no  interference.  ...  I  am 


230 


APPENDIX. 


much  gratified  by  the  course  brother  Cross  is  pursuing  to  make  the 
Tavoy  churches  self-supporting.  Great  as  is  the  evil  of  divisions,  and 
the  crippling  of  our  operations,  as  it  is  called,  if  the  result  is  that 
the  missions  learn  to  support  themselves,  the  good  will  be  greater 
than  the  evil,  —  God’s  blessing  greater  than  man’s  transgression.” 

Would  that  brother  Bunker  and  his  churches  to-day  stood  as 
squarely  for  self-support  as  the  same  churches  stood  under  Dr. 
Mason  thirty  years  ago! 


(E)  Ten  Facls  for  the  Friends  of  Karen  Education  to  consider. 

(1)  It  is  a  fact  that  the  Karens  are  an  agricultural  people  of  retiring 
habits,  and  that  it  is  far  better  for  them  to  remain  so. 

(2)  It  is  a  fact  that  they  need  higher  facilities  for  religious  and 
secular  education  than  they  at  present  enjoy,  to  fit  them  for  life,  and 
especially  for  missionary  work,  among  their  own  and  kindred  races. 

(3)  It  is  a  fact  that  they  are  able  to  contribute  largely  towards  the 
cost  of  this  higher  education,  and  that  they  would  be  better  off  to  do 
so. 

(4)  It  is  a  fact  that  Bassein  is  absolutely  central  to  the  richer  and 
more  advanced  half  of  the  Christian  Karen  population  of  Burma. 

(5)  It  is  a  fact  that  the  Bassein  Karens  alone  have  contributed 
much  more  for  religious  and  educational  purposes  during  the  last 
ten  years  than  all  the  other  Karen,  Burman,  and  Shan  Christians  of 
Burma  put  together. 

(G)  It  is  a  fact  that  the  Sgau  Karen  compound  in  Bassein  comprises 
twenty-six  acres  of  ground,  of  which  ten  are  free  from  taxes,  and  that 
as  a  whole,  for  school  purposes,  it  is  superior  to  any  other  compound 
owned  by  the  Missionary  Union  in  Burma. 

(7)  It  is  a  fact  that  the  school-buildings  on  that  compound,  recently 
erected  and  furnished  at  a  cost  of  over  Rs.  65,000,  are  admirably 
adapted  for  school  work,  and  sufficient  for  the  accommodation  of  300 
pupils  and  their  native  teachers.  This  heavy  expense  has  been  met 
by  the  Karens  and  their  local  friends,  without  material  aid  from 
America  or  from  government ;  and  the  fact  furnishes  a  strong  and 
unique  argument  for  the  location  of  the  higher  schools  for  Karens 
in  Bassein. 

(8)  It  is  also  a  fact  that  of  all  our  mission-schools  in  Burma,  the 
Bassein  Institute  has  secured  an  endowment  of  $35,000  from  the  will- 


APPENDIX. 


231 


ing  contributions  of  the  Karens  and  local  friends,  without  appeal  to 
the  Christian  public  of  America. 

(9)  It.  is  a  fact  that  the  American  Baptist  “Educational  Commis¬ 
sion  ”  adopted  this  as  a  fundamental  principle  :  that  generous  local 
help  should  be  absolutely  prerequisite  to  help  from  the  Commission. 
Can  there  be  any  doubt  that  this  principle  should  be  applied  to  edu¬ 
cational  institutions  in  the  foreign  field? 

(10)  It  is  a  fact  that  the  Bassein  Karens  are  the  only  people  who 
have  ever  invited  the  Karen  College  and  Seminary  to  their  hearts  and 
homes.  Their  invitation  has  been  often  renewed,  and  always  accom¬ 
panied  with  definite  and  generous  pledges  of  aid. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


SELF-SUPPORT  ILLUSTRATED  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF 
THE  BASSEIN  KAREN  MISSION. 


This  work  has  been  pronounced  by  excellent  judges  to  be 
one  of  the  most  valuable  contributions  ever  made  to  the  his¬ 
tory  and  philosophy  of  missions.  Ten  missionary  societies 
have  ordered  a  large  number  of  copies  for  distribution  among 
their  missionaries,  and  the  book  has  been  introduced  as  a  text¬ 
book  in  the  Training  Institution  of  the  Danish  Evangelical 
Missionary  Society.  Single  copies  of  the  new  edition,  with 
Dr.  Hovey’s  excellent  introduction  and  a  copy  of  this  tract 
(really  a  supplement  to  the  larger  volume) ,  will  be  sent,  post¬ 
paid ,  to  any  address  in  any  land  for  $1.50,  or  to  ministers  and 
missionaries  for  $1.25,  on  application  to  C.  H.  Carpenter, 
Newton  Centre,  M&ss.  It  may  be  procured,  also,  at  any  de¬ 
pository  of  the  American  Baptist  Publication  Society. 

OPINIONS  OF  EDITORS,  MISSIONARIES,  AND  OTHERS. 

“  The  study  and  experience  of  all  the  years  that  have  transpired  since 
we  went  to  India,  lead  us  to  welcome  this  volume,  and  devoutly  thank 
God  for  it.  It  is  the  lai'gest  contribution  to  the  work  of  foreign  missions 
within  our  knowledge  since  the  days  of  the  apostles  and  the  early  mar¬ 
tyrs,  —  larger  than  a  gift  of  a  million  dollars  in  solid  cash.  Let  the  lessons 
of  this  history  be  duly  studied  and  applied  by  every  foreign  missionary, 
and  we  may  look  for  the  speedy  evangelization  of  the  entire  heathen 
world.”  —  Rev.  Dr.  Wilder,  editor  Missionary  Review. 

“  A  book  full  of  interest,  and  sure  to  be  of  lasting  advantage  to  the 
cause  which  it  seeks  to  promote.  The  writer  is  deeply  in  earnest.  He  is 
more  than  the  historian,  and  more  than  the  advocate.  Profoundly  im¬ 
pressed  with  the  truth  of  the  record,  and  with  the  importance  of  the 
principles  it  illustrates,  he  gives  to  his  pages  a  strong  personality,  which 
impresses  itself  upon  the  reader,  and  wins  him  to  the  side  of  the  man  with 
whom  he  is  walking  in  Burma.”  —  Rev.  Alexander  McKenzie,  D.D.,  in 
the  Christian  Union. 

I 

“  An  extremely  interesting  inside  view  of  missionary  work.”  —  The 
Independent. 

42 

•  \  - 


THE  BASS  El  N  KAREN  MISSION. 


43 


“  Will  be  recognized  at  once,  by  all  competent  to  pronounce  on  the 
matter,  as  a  very  important  contribution  to  the  history  and  theory  of  for¬ 
eign  missions.”  —  Rev.  James  Mujdge  (late  of  Lucknow,  India),  in  Zion's 
Herald. 

“  The  reading  of  it  is  to  be  urgently  commended,  especially  to  the  home 
conductors  of  missions  and  to  all  missionaries.  —  Allgemeine  Missions- 
Zeitschrift. 

“  A  work  of  remarkable  interest  and  value,  not  only  as  a  history,  but 
also  as  an  argument  based  on  the  facts.  .  .  .  The  whole  story  of  trial  and 
triumph  is  told  with  admirable  tact  and  temper.”  —  Homiletic  Monthly. 

“A  thrilling  account,  and  will  be  read  with  the  deepest  interest  by  all 
friends  of  missionary  work.”  —  Christian  Commonwealth,  London. 

“  Mr.  Carpenter  has  laid  the  whole  Christian  world  under  great  obliga¬ 
tions  to  him  for  this  noble  book.”  —  Christian  Standard,  Cincinnati. 

“  We  commend  the  book  to  all  Christians  as  a  record  of  the  triumphs 
of  faith  and  heroism  of  martyrs.  We  commend  it  especially  to  mission¬ 
aries  at  home  ami  abroad,  for  its  lessons  on  the  subject  of  self-support  are 
important  to  both.”  —  Missionary  Record  (Cumberland  Presbyterian),  St. 
Louis. 

“  Should  be  read  by  every  pastor  in  America.  It  is  a  timely  book,  an 
inspiring  book,  a  book  that  has  a  mission.  Its  lessons  are  needed  by  the 
leaders  in  missions  throughout  the  Christian  world;  and  the  inspiration  of 
the  example  of  zeal,  self-denial,  and  heroism  shown  by  the  missionaries 
and  the  Karen  Christians  is  needed  by  all.”  —  Baptist  Pioneer,  Selma,  Ala. 

“  Very  suggestive  and  instructive.  A  valuable  contribution,  not  only  to 
the  history,  but  to  the  philosophy,  of  missions.  It  is  the  most  historically 
accurate  and  carefully  written  book  that  has  yet  been  published  on  the 
missions  in  Burma.  We  wish  every  secretary  of  a  missionary  society, 
every  director,  and  every  missionary,  could  read  it.”  —  Chronicle  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society. 

“  Exceedingly  suggestive.  We  wish  it  could  be  put  into  the  hands  of 
every  missionary  in  India.  Valuable  hints  can  be  found  in  it  upon  many 
missionary  topics,  while  the  spirit  which  pervades  the  book  from  end  to 
end  cannot  but  be  stimulating  to  missionary  zeal  and  enterprise.  The 
heroes  of  the  story  are  not  exalted  to  impossible  pinnacles  of  excellence, 
but  their  frailties  are  admitted  with  all  frankness  and  honesty.” — Rev. 
Dr.  Thoburn,  in  the  Indian  Witness,  Calcutta. 

“Subsidy  enervated  the  churches;  self-help,  on  the  other  hand,  invig¬ 
orated  them.  We  wish  that  every  promoter  of  missions  could  trace  for 
himself  the  proof  of  this  statement  in  the  admirable  history  of  the  Bassein 
Mission  by  Mr.  Carpenter.  In  a  narrative  of  intense  and  romantic  inter¬ 
est,  it  presents  a  distinct  view  of  one  of  the  best  missions  of  the  century, 
carried  on  by  Christian  heroes,  who  shortened  their  lives  by  devotion  to 
the  cause  they  loved  so  well.  The  adoption,  gradually  and  wisely,  of  the 
principle  of  self-help  in  all  our  missions,  would,  we  are  persuaded,  inaugu- 


44 


SELF-SUPPORT:  HISTORY  OF 


rate  a  new  era  of  progress  throughout  the  world.”  —  Spurgeon’s  Sword 
and  Trowel. 

“  I  am  exceedingly  glad  to  see  your  book,  because  it  brings  so  freshly 
to  my  mind  a  man  who  was  very  dear  to  me,  and  whom  I  esteemed  as  one 
of  our  best  missionaries.  I  knew  Brother  Abbott  before  he  left  Hamilton. 
.  .  .  I  think  he  was  the  most  genial  man  I  ever  knew.  Your  book  brings 
him  fresh  before  me,  with  so  many  pleasant  recollections,  that  I  cherish 
the  book  as  a  blessing  and  a  friend.  I  think  it  cannot  fail  to  do  good  to 
all  who  read  it,  and  I  think  that  those  who  read  it  will  be  many.  If  they 
love  missions,  they  will  read  it ;  and,  if  they  read  it,  they  will  love  mis¬ 
sions.” —  Rev.  E.  B.  Cross,  D.D.,  Toungoo,  Burma. 

“  I  read  your  book  through,  from  beginning  to  end.  I  enjoyed  it  much. 
.  .  .  I  approve  and  indorse  it,  as  a  whole,  most  heartily  and  emphatically. 
I  wish  it  might  be  in  every  Baptist  family  and  in  every  Sunday-school 
library  in  the  land.  I  thank  you  for  your  faithful  work.  May  God  reward 
you  by  making  the  book  the  means  of  awakening  a  deeper  interest  in 
missions,  and  a  deeper  study  of  the  principles,  methods,  and  policy  of 
missions.”  —  Rev.  A.  T.  Rose,  Rangoon,  Burma. 

“  Your  book  has  been  read  by  some  of  us  here  with  much  interest.  I 
mean  to  keep  it  moving  among  my  missionary  friends.” —Rev.  G.  L. 
Mason,  Ningpo,  Cliiua. 

“  I  fully  approve  of  the  principle,  and  we  are  trying  to  throw  the  bur¬ 
dens  more  and  more  on  the  native  brethren.”  —  Rev.  R.  H.  Graves,  D.D., 
Canton,  China. 

“We  have  read  your  good  and  timely  book,  ‘  Self-Support,’  with  pleas¬ 
ure  and  profit.  I  think  it  will  do  great  good.”  —  Rev.  E.  Z.  Simmons, 
Canton,  China. 

“  Of  all  missions,  the  Bassein  Karen  Mission  leads  the  list,  in  my  hum¬ 
ble  judgment,  and  largely  because  it  lias  kept  to  the  principle  of  your 
text.”  —  Rev.  W.  H.  Sloan,  Mexico  (late  Rangoon,  Burma). 

“  A  wonderful  record.  Its  study  will  do  any  man  good.  With  the 
principles  it  advocates,  I  am  in  full  sympathy.” — Rev.  J.  A.  Freiday, 
Bhamo,  Upper  Burma. 

“  The  history  of  this  mission  is  faithfully  and  most  interestingly  re¬ 
counted,  and  yet  the  thing  to  be  illustrated  is  never  for  a  moment  lost 
sight  of.  Indeed,  it  could  not  well  be,  so  incorporated  is  this  principle  of 
self-support  in  the  entire  life  and  growth  of  the  mission.  .  .  .  Our  grati¬ 
tude  is  certainly  due  to  [the  author]  for  thus  collecting  and  putting  into 
permanent  form  these  records  of  one  of  the  most  successful  missions  of 
modern  times  or  of  any  time.  .  .  .  To  hunt  about  for  a  stray  fly  or  two  in 
this  book  of  precious  ointment  may  seem  a  very  ungracious  task.”  — 
Rev.  D.  A.  W.  Smith,  D.D.,  Rangoon,  Burma. 

“  I  am  glad  you  have  published  [your  book],  and  still  more  so,  that  the 
facts  which  it  records  ever  took  place  to  enable  you  to  publish  it.  I  hope 
that  the  book  will  be  widely  read,  and  that  it  may  promote  a  true  knowl- 


THE  BASSE  IN  KAREN  MISSION. 


45 


edge  of  missionary  work  and  interest  therein.” — Rev.  C.  W.  Park,  late 
editor  of  the  Indian  Evangelical  Review ,  Bombay. 

“  I  have  read  it  through  with  pleasure  and  profit.  It  is  a  noble  histori¬ 
cal  record  of  the  early  days  of  the  mission,  and  full  of  important  informa¬ 
tion  and  suggestions  as  to  the  later  and  the ‘present.” —  Rev.  S.  F.  Smith, 
D.D.,  author  of  Missionary  Sketches,  Rambles  in  Mission-Fields,  etc. 

“  My  wife  and  I  are  reading  your  bool^  with  great  interest.  The  account 
of  the  early  beginnings  of  Christianity  among  the  Karens,  when  the  Word 
was  handed  on  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  no  missionary  came  for  years 
together,  is  wonderful.”  —  Hon.  C.  Bernard,  Chief  Commissioner  British 
Burma,  Rangoon. 

“  A  great  mistake  has  been  made  by  our  societies  South  in  their  manner 
of  work  among  the  freedmen.  They  are  not  helping  them  to  do  the  work, 
but  are  doing  it  for  them  in  large  measure.  ...  I  hope  your  book  may 
help  to  change  this.”  —  Rev.  H.  Woodsmall,  Atlanta,  Ga. 

“  I  read  your  book  with  profound  interest.  My  joy  and  admiration  in 
view  of  Christian  missions  were  greatly  increased.  The  type  of  piety 
developed  by  the  apostolic  labors  and  teaching  of  the  sainted  Abbott 
seems  to  me  nearer  to  the  New-Testatnent  model  than  any  other  found  in 
our  time.  Your  book  must  do  great  good.” — Rev.  G.  W.  Bosworth, 
D.D.,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

“  I  cannot  write  you  of  my  thoughts  as  I  read  this  wonderful  story.  .  .  . 
I  never  dreamed  of  the  work  which  was  going  on  when  I  was  a  child,  and 
used  to  hear  all  the  talk  about  *  Abbott’s  work.’  I  thank  you  a  thousand 
times  for  the  gathering  of  the  threads,  and  for  putting  them  before  us 
in  this  clear  and  connected  narrative.”  —  Mrs.  M.  A.  Edmond,  Salem, 
Mass. 

“  I  am  sure  your  excellent  book  will  be  read  by  [our  missionaries]  with 
the  same  interest  as  that  with  which  I  have  read  it,  and  that  it  will  con¬ 
tribute  to  the  furtherance  of  the  system  of  self-support  in  our  missions.  .  .  . 
I  wish  this  sound  principle  to  be  instilled  into  the  minds  of  [our  missionary 
students]  from  the  very  beginning  of  their  preparation  for  their  future 
work.”  —  Pastor  V.  Holm,  Secretary  Danish  Evangelical  Missionary  Society, 
Gladsaxe,  Denmark. 

“  I  w'ant  to  tell  you  how  much  I  am  enjoying  the  reading  of  *  Self-Sup¬ 
port  ’  in  Bassein.  I  am  glad  you  have  brought  out  Mr.  Abbott’s  views  in 
regard  to  self-support.  We  must  look  to  the  future  in  laying  the  founda¬ 
tion.  A  system  may  be  adopted  which  will  yield  apparently  greater  pres¬ 
ent  results,  but  be  finally  pernicious.”  —  Miss  L.  E.  Miller  (late  of 
Tavoy). 

“  We  are  enjoying  your  book  very  much,  and  second  Dr.  J.’s  suggestion 
that  the  Karens  should  have  an  abridged  edition  in  their  own  language. 
If  you  will  immediately  prepare  such  an  edition,  I  shall  be  glad  to  put  it 
through  our  press  to  the  best  of  my  ability.”  —  Rev.  C.  A.  Nichols,  Bas¬ 
sein,  Burma. 


4G 


THE  BASSE  IN  KAREN  MISSION ” 


“  T  have  found  great  interest  in  reading  your  volume  upon  self-support. 
God's  lessons  in  the  Bassein  Sgau  Karen  work  cannot  be  made  too  con¬ 
spicuous.  I  only  wish  now  that  our  Board  could  go  hack  with  you  to 
Western  Burma,  and  spend  a  week  on  your  held.”  —  Bev.  W.  F.  Bain- 
bridge,  author  of  “  Bound-tlie- World  Tour,”  etc. 

“  I  have  just  finished  the  reading  of  your  hook,  ‘  Self-Support,’  and  feel 
that  I  must  thank  you  for  it  —  or  God  that  he  led  you  to  write  it.  .  .  . 
I  think  that  Brother  Abbott  was  divinely  led  to  [the  true  principle]  — 
‘  Karen  support  for  Karens,  American  support  for  Americans.’  .  .  .  Your 
book  cannot  but  do  good.” —  Bev.  E.  T.  Sandford,  St.  Jolinsbury,  Yt. 

“  I  have  read  it  through  from  beginning  to  end  with  constantly  increas¬ 
ing  interest,  and  I  hope  profit  also.”  —  Bev.  S.  B.  Band,  Amherst,  Mass, 
(formerly  of  Maulmain). 

“  It  will  be  a  very  readable  hook  to  many  even  who  do  not  comprehend 
its  logical  tendency.  .  .  .  Self-support  should  he  the  aim  in  all  our  mis¬ 
sions  at  the  earliest  moment  practicable,  and  self-control  also.  The  won¬ 
derful  progress  of  these  Karen  churches  will  be  helpful  in  leading  us  in  the 
right  direction.  I  congratulate  you  on  so  successful  a  completion  of  your 
gre.  t  undertaking.  Your  book  may  accomplish  more  even  than  all  your 
successful  personal  ministrations  as  a  minister  of  the  gospel  among  the 
heathen.”  —  Ebenezer  Thresher,  LL.D,,  Dayton,  O. 

“  I  thank  you  most  cordially  for  your  very  valuable  volume  defending  the 
great  principle  of  self-support  in  missions.”  —  Bev.  Joseph  Cook,  Boston. 

“  I  have  read  your  volume  with  much  interest.  I  accept  heartily  the 
theory  set  forth,  as  limited  and  illustrated  in  the  Bassein  mission.”  —  Bev. 
Dr.  N.  G.  Clark,  Corresponding  Secretary  A. B.C.F.M.,  Boston. 

“  A  very  interesting  book.  I  have  thus  far  read  about  one-half  of  it, 
and  hope  to  complete  it  in  a  few  days.  I  take  it  with  me  on  my  journeys. 
The  history  of  the  Karen  missions  has  always  been  of  stirring  interest  to 
me;  but  the  better  knowledge  which  this  book  gives  me  greatly  increases 
that  interest.”  —  Bev.  Dr.  J.  M.  Beid,  Corresponding  Secretary  Methodist- 
Episcopal  Missions,  New  York. 

“  It  is  a  great  satisfaction  to  me  to  see  the  high  merit  and  indefatigable 
work  of  my  friend  Mr.  E.  L.  Abbott,  in  years  long  gone  by,  placed  on 
record  in  a  volume  which  will  be  read  with  deep  interest  in  these  islands 
as  well  as  in  America.  Need  I  say  that  your  interesting  book  recalTs  to 
me  many  happy  days  among  the  simple  Karens  in  the  midst  of  their  hills 
and  jungles?”  —  Gen.  Sir  A.  P.  Phayke,  late  Chief  Commissioner  of  Brit¬ 
ish  Burma,  Governor  of  Mauritius,  etc.,  Bray,  County  Wicklow,  Ireland. 

“I  am  reading  ‘Self-Support  in  Bassein’  with  due  care,  and  growing 
interest  as  I  proceed.  Those  of  us  who  have  a  practical  knowledge  of  mis¬ 
sions,  and  who  see  how  their  strength  and  progress  have  been  retarded  by 
foreign  nursing  and  a  far  too  lavish  supply  of  money,  cannot  but  bo  inter- 


"SELF-SUPPORT ” 


47 


ested  in  the  history  of  a  healthier  attempt.  The  book,  as  you  say,  will 
awaken  some  sharp  criticism;  but  it  will  commend  itself  to  the  judgment 
of  most  unprejudiced  minds.  It  is  especially  advisable  to  get  it  into  the 
hands  of  missionaries  and  the  secretaries  and  directors  of  mission  societies. 
The  opinion,  I  imagine,  is  now  general,  that  the  earlier  missionaries  were 
wrong  in  doing  so  much  for  the  native  churches;  and  now  comes  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  correcting  their  mistaken  policy.”  — Rev.  E.  Storkow,  Brighton, 
England  (for  many  years  a  missionary  of  the  L.M.S.  in  Calcutta). 

“  I  have  read  Self-Support  ’  with  an  interest  second  only  to  that  with 
which  1  read  the  life  of  Dr.  Judson,  and  in  some  respects  with  an  interest 
such  as  no  other  mission-story  ever  awakened  in  my  mind.  As  I  complete 
the  reading,  I  ask  myself,  4  What  can  be  said  in  reply  to  the  argument  which 
it  presents?  ’  It  seems  unanswerable.  Two  points  are  made  perfectly  clear 
by  it,  —  the  necessity  of  developing  a  spirit  of  self-support  among  the  con¬ 
verts,  and  the  need  of  a  Christian  education  for  the  people  who  have  been 
evangelized.  The  first  principle  lies  at  the  very  root  of  Christianity.”  — 
Rev.  G.  B.  Gow,  D.D.,  Glen’s  Falls,  N  Y. 

n  The  book  is  cheap  at  $1  50,  as  books  are  published,  and  its  contents 
are  richer  than  its  external  dress  and  form.  I  hope  it  may  have  a  large 
circulation.  Its  excellences  are  abundant,  and  its  failings  are  few  and  by 
no  means  considerable.” — Rev.  J.  N.  Murdock,  D.D.,  Corresponding  Sec¬ 
retary  A.  B.  M.  Union. 

“I  thank  you  for  your  interesting  book.  We  think  it  would  be  useful 
for  our  mission-conference  libraries  in  India,  and  are  ordering  twelve  copies 
through  Triibner  &  Co.  for  that  purpose.”  —  Eugene  Stock,  Editorial 
Secretary  Church  Missionary  Society. 

“Let  me  thank  you  for  the  service  which  you  have  rendered  the  cause 
of  Christian  missions  by  writing  4  Self-Support  in  Bassein.’  I  have  just 
finished  the  careful  reading  of  it,  and  am  profoundly  impressed  with  its 
value.  It  is  a  revelation,  a  demonstration,  and  an  inspiration,  —  a  revela¬ 
tion  of  missionary  life  of  unsurpassed  interest ;  an  historical  demonstra¬ 
tion  of  your  thesis,  that  the  evangelical  work  done  by  natives  in  our  foreign 
fields  must  be  sustained  by  natives  ;  an  inspiration  of  courage  and  hope 
in  the  prosecution  of  our  divinely  appointed  task  of  giving  the  gospel  to 
the  world.  Upon  the  method  which  you  advocate,  there  is  reasonable 
ground  for  faith  ;  our  resources  of  men  and  money  seem  more  nearly  ade¬ 
quate  to  the  demands  of  the  enterprise  than  under  the  current  system.”  — 
Rev.  II.  E.  Robins,  D.D kite  President  of  Colby  University. 

“Among  the  most  valuable  of  recent  additions  to  missionary  litera¬ 
ture.  .  .  .  With  admirable  modesty  the  author  tells  almost  nothing  about 
his  own  personal  work.  .  .  .  The  book  gives  us  fresh  occasion  to  congratu¬ 
late  our  brethren  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Convention,  that  the  poverty  of 
our  treasury  and  the  good  sense  of  our  missionaries  have  preserved  us  from 
some  of  the  mistakes  into  which  others  have  fallen.”  —  Foreign  Mission 
Journal,  Richmond,  Va.,  April,  1884. 


.  - 

*  •  •  1 


. 


~ 

-  -  .  >  '  “ 

■ 


T  — 

MUSICALLY  DISCORDANT  ECHOES  TO  TRACT  NO. 

“  I  have  read  ‘  No.  3  ’  with  great  satisfaction,  and  see  nothing  in  it  to  fi 
fault  with.  I  heartily  approve  it.”  —  Rev.  A.  Loughridge,  Missionary  t 
the  Telugus. 

Rev.  C.  B.  Ward,  of  Secunderabad,  India,  writes:  “I  cannot  feel  that 
I  have  discharged  my  duty  till  I  write  you  a  letter  expressive  of  my 
deep-felt  gratitude  to  God  and  you  for  your  ‘Missionary  Tracts  for  the 

Times.’  Some  months  since  I  came  accidentally  across  Dr. - ’s  copy  of 

your  volume,  ‘  Self-Support,’  and  ‘  Tract  No.  1.’  The  Doctor  was  trying  to 

lend  it  as  little  as  possible  ;  but  when  he  lent  it  to  - ,  at  least  a  dozen 

read  it.  It  was  read  day  and  night.  I  emploj^ed  two  young  men  to  cop}r 
for  me,  and  brought  away  about  a  hundred  pages  of  the  book  and  tract, 
which  I  have  been  using  in  the  ‘India  Methodist  Watchman.’  .  .  .  God 
bless  you,  Brother  C.  ...  If  you  don’t  die  till  your  tracts  kill  you,  you 
will  outlive  many  of  your  brethren.  ...  I  want  twenty  copies  of  ‘  No.  3.’  ” 

“  Good  Dr.  Judson  certainly  made  a  mistake  in  the  Burman  work  in  not 
having  the  native  Christians  help  themselves  more.  After  a  baby  has  been 
carried  in  arms  for  seventy  years,  you  may  put  it  down  and  say,  ‘  Now 
walk  alone,’  but  it  won’t  walk  worth  a  cent.”  —  A  Missionary  to  the 
Barmans. 

“  [As  to  self-support],  too  many  missionaries,  like  some  Democrats  in  ’(>1, 
are  in  favor  of  the  Constitution,  but  ‘agin  the  enforcement  of  it.’”  —  A 
Missionary  of  the  A.  B.  C.  F.  M.  in  China. 

“  I  have  been  greatly  interested  in  ‘  No.  3,’  and  from  my  standpoint  it  is 
the  strongest  of  the  three  thus  far  issued  for  the  general  cause.  I  am  sure 
you  will  find  that  these  tracts  are  doing  a  great  deal  to  undermine  the 
present  system  of  subsidy.”  —  A  Missionary  to  the  Japanese. 

An  excellent  secretary  of  foreign  missions  writes — 

“  While  I  was  a  missionary  in  China,  my  observations  and  experience 
led  me  to  the  conclusions  which  you  have  ably  stated  and  indicated  in  your 

tract  [No.  3],  and  my  colleagues  at - were  of  the  same  mind.  Since  I 

came  to  the  secretary’s  place,  I  have  aimed  to  shape  [our]  mission-work,  as 
far  as  I  could,  according  to  these  principles,  which  I  believe  meet  with 
increasing  favor  among  the  missionaries  of  this  Church.  Undoubtedly  the 
call  to  the  native  Christians  to  practise  self-denial,  that  they  may  support 
the  gospel  and  carry  it  forward,  carries  with  it  a  still  louder  call  to  the 
missionaries  to  set  an  example  in  this  thing;  and  this  brings  the  call  back 
with  increased  force  to  us  at  home.  ...  I  enclose  S3  for  copies  of  4  No.  3.’  ” 

Brother  Bunker,  of  Toungoo,  follows,  with  just  the  note  required  to 
complete  the  chord  of  “  the  diminished  seventh  :  ”  — 

“  You  are  fast  committing  moral  suicide.  .  .  .  Says  a  president  of  one  of 
our  universities,  whose  name  is  in  all  the  churches,  in  a  private  letter  to¬ 
day,  referring  to  your  tracts,  ‘  His  course  is  astonishing.  It  is  a  wonder 
to  me  that  brother  C  does  not  see  the  mischief  of  his  campaign.’  Says 
another  of  almost  world-wide  reputation,  ‘  His  course  is  most  astounding.’ 
Says  a  prominent  sister,  .  .  .  ‘  Poor  Mr.  C. !  Was  ever  man  so  deluded?’ 
and  more  of  that  kind.  Hence,  my  dear  brother,  I  beg  of  you  to  be  sure 
.  .  .  that  you  are  not  led  by  the  Spirit  from  below.” 


[See  fourth  page  of  rover. 


MISSIONARY  TRACTS  FOR  THE  TIMES. 


No.  1.  Self-Support:  How  far  attained  in  our  Missions. 

Price  10  Cents. 

No.  2.  The  American  Baptist  Missionary  Union :  Its  Present 
Standing  as  an  Economical  Agency  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel.  *  Pkice  10  Cents. 

No.  3.  The  Subsidy  System  in  Missions:  Shall  it  be  Extirpated? 

Pkice  20  Cents. 

No.  4.  Self-Supporting  Schools  in  our  Missions:  How  they  may 
be  Escaped.  Pkice  20  Cents. 

No.  5.  The  Coming  Revolution :  A  Plea  for  Constitutional  Re¬ 
vision.  In  Press. 


For  distribution,  the  above  tracts  will  be  furnished  at  six  dollars 
a  hundred,  or  thirty  dollars  a  thousand.  Persons  forwarding  one  dollar  in 
aid  of  the  free-distribution  fund  will  receive  the  whole  series  by  mail. 
Address  the  author,  at  Newton  Centre,  Mass. 

Single  copies  will  be  sent,  postpaid,  to  any  address,  for  the  pub¬ 
lished  price.  Apply  to  the  publisher,  at  43  Lincoln  Street,  Boston,  Mass., 
or  at  any  depository  of  the  American  Baptist  Publication  Society. 

Pecuniary  aid  is  still  greatly  needed  to  meet  the  heavy  expense  of 
publishing  and  distributing  through  the  mails  thirty  thousand  copies  of 
these  tracts.  Address  the  author  as  above. 

No.  5,  “  The  Coming  Revolution,”  takes  up  entirely  new  ground, 
and  is  by  no  means  the  least  important  number  of  the  series.  It  may  not 
be  distributed  as  freely  as  the  previous  numbers.  To  insure  receiving  a  copy, 
all  persons  who  desire  it  and  have  not  already  ordered  should  at  once  do 
so,  enclosing  twenty  cents  in  stamps,  to  the  author. 

Will  be  published  about  May  1  (if  sufficient  encouragement  is 
given),  “STUDIES  IN  MISSION  ECONOMICS,”  by  C.  H.  Carpenter. 
The  volume  will  contain  the  entire  series  of  “Missionary  Tracts  for  the 
Times,”  with  various  additions  and  improvements,  and  will  be  a  handsome 
muslin-bound  duodecimo  of  about  three  hundred  pages.  Price,  with  a 
portrait  of  Rev.  E.  L.  Abbott,  the  pioneer  of  self-support  among  all  Ameri¬ 
can  missionaries,  one  dollar.  Pastors  who  send  seventy-live  cents  to  the 
author,  in  advance  of  publication,  will  receive  a  copy  postpaid  ;  or,  for  two 
dollars  the  author  will  send  the  “  Studies,”  and  the  “History  of  the  Bas- 
sein  Karen  Mission.”  Be  prompt,  as  lie  wishes  to  sail  for  the  foreign  held 
i;i  the  early  summer. 


[/See  third  page  of  cover. 


